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SECRETS 












A First National Picture. 

NORMA TALMADGE AS MARY CARLTON. 


Secrets. 




SECRETS 

ADAPTED FROM THE 
NORMA TALMADGE PICTURE 

BY 

ROGER BATCHELDER 

h 


Founded on the 

Sam H. Harris play '‘SECRETS” 
by Rudolf Besier and May Edginton 


ILLUSTRATED WITH SCENES 
FROM THE PHOTOPLAY 
A FIRST NATIONAL PICTURE 



GROSSET & DUNLAP 

PUBLISHERS NEW YORK 


Made in the United States of America 








'J)^ C 1S5 


Copyright, 1924, by 
GROSSET & DUNLAP 


i 



DEDICATED 

TO 

Norma Talmadge 

WHOSE GREAT ARTISTRY IN TIIE 
DEPICTION OF A WOMAN ? S HEART 
LAID BARE HAS INSPIRED THIS STORY 
AND TO 

Rudolf Besier, 

May Edginton and 
Sam H. Harris 

WHO KINDLY GAVE PERMISSION TO 
NOVELIZE THIS BEAUTIFUL PLAY 







SECRETS 


PROLOGUE 

There was not the usual bustle around the 
great house on Porchester Terrace this spring 
afternoon. The iron gates of the driveway 
which led briefly to the front entrance were 
closed, though one could see at a certain angle 
from the street an attendant leaning against 
the high wall which was surmounted by un¬ 
evenly cemented pieces of broken glass, ac¬ 
cording to the English tradition. Even in the 
rear, where the tradesmen usually drove 
through the alley, their carts rumbling along 
the cobblestones, a man was posted to enforce 
silence and himself take quietly the deliveries to 
the kitchen. 

Sir John Carlton was dying. 

The grim, precisely symmetrical stone house 
looked down upon the scant stretch of lawn 
and budding or flowering shrubs flanking the 
inside of the wall, with its background of 
1 


2 


SECRETS 


ivy and umbrella-like willows, whose drooping 
branches fell until their slim leaves mingled 
with the grass. Beyond the wall and this im¬ 
mediate section, where a few old residences 
had more grounds and larger gardens than are 
usual to-day around the town houses of Lon¬ 
don, were the smaller and much more modest 
houses of Bayswater, utterly unlike the Ameri¬ 
can bungalow, but the nearest English ap¬ 
proach to it. They extended along the Thames 
and went far back until they were stopped by 
the great houses which had been built years 
ago. 

There were several motors before the house. 
One was the limousine of Dr. Arbuthnot, a 
leading pulmonary specialist of London, whose 
practice in his later years had been necessarily 
restricted to a few very prominent patrons. 
His chauffeur sat on the running-board away 
from the house, smoking and chatting with the 
man who had recently brought one of the Carl¬ 
ton motors from the garage. 

“I’m used to it,” he said passively, fumbling 
for another cigarette. 

“They’ve ’ad me on all day, and it’ll be to¬ 
morrow before I get ’ome,” the Carlton chauf¬ 
feur told his friend of an hour, with a suspicion 


3 


SECRETS 

of melancholy. “My partner was on all day 
yesterday and last night, roundin’ up the old 
gentleman’s kids—which was not so funny— 
and, ’ ’ he sighed, ‘ ‘ ’ere I am. At that, though, ’ ’ 
he amended, as if fearful of doing an injustice 
to a man who was literally worshiped by his 
servants, “ ’e was a good bloke. Once when 
he ’ad me drivin’ all through the Lochs on a 
week-end, he handed me a week’s pay extra 
when we got back ’ome. And when the kid 
was sick, ’e sent one of his medicos around to 
’elp ’er. I ’ope the old lad pulls out of it, even 
if”—he sighed again—“I ’ave to stay ’ere all 
night.” 

Soon he was listening to an enthusiastic ac¬ 
count of a wild ride to Sussex, where a peer 
had been saved by the fast driving of the Ar- 
buthnot chauffeur; and eventually both were 
talking about Dixmude and Ypres, then on com¬ 
mon conversational ground. 

Upstairs, in the house, there was the strained 
hush that accompanies severe illness. 

In the dressing-room adjoining Sir John 
Carlton’s bedroom, Robert Carlton smothered 
a yawn. He, as well as his brother, John, who 
stood anxiously by the mantel-piece, was 
formally attired. Their two sisters, Lady Les- 


4 


SECRETS 


sington and Audrey Carlton, both smoking list¬ 
lessly, sat on the couch. 

“What’s the time, John?” asked Robert 
wearily. 

His brother looked at his watch and said, 
“Half after five.” 

“ Oh! This dreadful waiting, ’ ’ broke in Lady 
Lessington, who had been called from an aus¬ 
picious week-end in Scotland to the deathbed 
of her father. She was a handsome woman, 
more like her father than Lady Carlton in ap¬ 
pearance, but whose obvious distaste for the 
impending term “middle-aged,” became ap¬ 
parent now and then in her moments of petu¬ 
lance. She had acquired “nerves,” which as¬ 
serted themselves at times like this. “Sir 
Gilbert said,” she declared, “that this new 
treatment of his ought to show some definite 
result in an hour. It’s now three hours 
since-” 

“Personally,” interrupted Audrey deci¬ 
sively, “I’ve no faith whatever in Sir Gil¬ 
bert and his treatment—though, of course, one 
has to try it.” Audrey Carlton was unfortu¬ 
nately masculine in her bearing and in her 
usual remarks. When Robert had once sug- 



SECRETS 


5 


gested brutally that she postpone her officious¬ 
ness until she was safely installed as the head 
of some household, she had gone into a rage 
and included all men in her expressions of con¬ 
tempt for him. 

“When a man’s seventy-seven,’’ she as¬ 
serted, “and gets double pneumonia, the only 
treatment that can save him is a miracle.” 

“My dear Audrey,” retorted her brother, 
“the most miraculous thing about miracles is 
that they are always happening.” 

Audrey sniffed. 

“That’s not original, Robert,” she told him. 

John Carlton, the oldest of the children, and 
decidedly the most concerned of those in the 
dressing-room, walked toward the door of his 
father’s bedroom and peered at it anxiously 
and rather hopelessly. His features resembled 
those of his mother; they were reassuring at 
first glance. His eyes were kindly, and his lips 
were pleasantly curved. The hair at his tem¬ 
ples was gray in spots. He had told none of 
the others that he had been in constant com¬ 
munication with the house on Porchester Ter¬ 
race during the past forty-eight hours by tele¬ 
graph or telephone. A vital development in Sir 


6 


SECRETS 


John's business affairs had, in fact, kept him 
rushing from one city to another, without 
chance for sleep during the short trips. 

He returned to the side of his brother, who 
had risen and stood by the fireplace. 

“The only hope, it seems to me,” he said 
quietly, “is in father's amazing constitution. 
He might pull through a crisis like this where 
a dozen men of his age would go under.” 

“Well, to be perfectly frank-” began 

Audrey, who felt called upon to say some¬ 
thing. 

“Oh, Lord,” groaned Robert. “More from 
the family oracle.” 

“To be perfectly frank,” she continued, with 
an angry look at her brother, “it’s not father 
I'm worrying about so much as dear mother.” 

“Poor darling,” agreed Lady Lessington, 
“she looks absolutely worn out.” 

“Well, you wouldn't wonder at it, if you’d 
been here last week and seen the tyranny ex¬ 
ercised in the sick-room,” retorted Audrey. 

Lady Lessington shrugged her shoulders. 

“But invalids are always exacting,” in¬ 
sisted John. 

“Nonsense. It’s father’s will to be exacting, 
sick or well,” Audrey returned. 


SECRETS 7 

“Oh, for Heaven’s sake, Audrey-” broke 

in John. 

Audrey was very complacent. She had al¬ 
ways been well nourished and self-satisfied, 
and she prided herself on her indifference to 
the opinions of others, particularly members of 
the family. She regarded with pitying disdain 
even John’s lack of appreciation of the events 
that she had so carefully observed. 

“He’s simply made a slave of mother,” she 
cried vehemently. “Just a little slave! Two 
nurses, and neither of them allowed to do a 
hand’s turn for him if he could help it! Mother 
must fetch and carry; mother must feed him; 
mother must sit with him; mother must hold his 
hand. If she was ever away for five minutes, 
it was always, ‘Mary, come here; I want you.’ ” 

“Well,” suggested John, “that’s not such a 
bad thing for a woman to hear, if you ask me.” 
He looked at his sister with a half-smile of 
inquiry. 

Audrey looked at him scornfully. 

“All his life it’s been the same,” she said, 
her eyes blazing. “She’s always been his 
slave.” 

“Just the fault of her generation, my 
dear,” explained Lady Lessington tolerantly. 


8 


SECRETS 


44 Women of her time simply didn’t know how 
to manage life.” 

“I dare say,” agreed Audrey. “All the 
same, it makes my blood boil to see her wear¬ 
ing herself away to a shadow. It isn’t as if he’d 
been, from any point of view, a model husband, 
or-” 

“Really, Audrey,” objected John, “this 
doesn’t seem to me to be the time to bring up 
poor old dad’s shortcomings.” 

His sister shook her head in perplexity. 

“Women have very little sense of decency 
in these matters,” remarked Robert deci¬ 
sively. 

“Thank you, dear Robert,” said Lady Les- 
sington, with a weary smile. “Still, Audrey,” 
she continued, “it’s a waste of energy and per¬ 
fectly useless to get so hot and angry about all 
this.” 

John shook his head uncomprehendingly 
when he saw that his younger sister was about 
to continue her arguments, but turned when 
he heard the door of the sick-room open softly. 
Dr. Arbuthnot appeared, closed the door, and 
placed in their proper position the portieres 
through which he had just come. Then, with 
a sigh, he joined Sir John Carlton’s children. 


SECRETS 


9 


“Ak! All of you still here!” ke remarked, 
glancing about kim. 

He was an elderly man wkom one would im¬ 
mediately recognize as eminent, wketker states¬ 
man, barrister or physician. He revealed in 
every move and word, as well as in kis dis¬ 
tinguished appearance, the best traditions of 
generations of Englishmen. This late after¬ 
noon kis face had deep lines that had been ac¬ 
centuated by hours without sleep. His eyes 
were bright, and his lips curved in the expected 
hopeful smile of the doctor. His poise was 
very exact; he was deadly tired, but no one 
must know it. 

“Well, Doctor V 9 inquired John, passing a 
silver box filled with cigarettes and, as the 
physician nodded it away, taking one himself 
and lighting it nervously. 

Dr. Arbuthnot scanned the faces of the four 
children of the man whom he was trying to help 
to live. The women, he noticed casually, had 
risen as he came into the room, and had put 
down their cigarettes. He was pleased at that, 
for Sir John Carlton was one of his friends. 
He understood now, he thought, how much 
their father really meant to them below the 
surface of their seeming nonchalance. 


10 


SECRETS 


“Pm afraid I haven’t anything very definite 
to tell yon,” he admitted regretfully. “An 
hour ago Sir Gilbert and I thought that we saw 
signs that Sir John was yielding to the treat¬ 
ment. But now—I can’t tell. I can’t tell. 
Please don’t worry, my boy,” he urged, turn¬ 
ing to John, whose eyelids had closed at the 
non-committal announcement. “Everything 
may—should—be for the best.” 

“There still is—hope?” faltered Lady Les- 
sington, deeply impressed when she, like John, 
had guessed the discouragement behind Dr. Ar- 
buthnot’s guarded assurances. 

“Hope, of course, dear lady. But I’m afraid 
the probabilities are against recovery,” he 
finally admitted. He paused for a moment, as 
though to weigh carefully his words. “I’m 
sorry—very sorry—to distress you, but it’s 
best to be quite frank.” 

“Has he been conscious?” inquired Robert. 

‘ ‘In snatches, ’ ’ the physician answered. i i He 
always knew Lady Carlton.” 

“And how is mother keeping up?” inquired 
Audrey. 

“Wonderfully,” he answered, “though I 
want her to rest. She must rest. But I doubt 
if she can be persuaded to do so until she has 


\ 


















11 


SECRETS 

some sort of certainty about him. I'm going 
to bring her in here to that arm-chair, within 
earshot of his room. You had better leave her 
to me.” 

6 ‘It’s been a tremendous strain for the poor 
darling,” said Lady Lessington sympatheti¬ 
cally. 

“Of course,” agreed Dr. Arbuthnot. 

“And all through,” pursued Audrey em¬ 
phatically, “she has indulged his slightest 
whim at any expense to herself.” 

The doctor turned abruptly towards her, 
then smiled and agreed again, “Ah! Of 
course.” 

Audrey must have noticed the minute change 
from Dr. Arbuthnot’s usual suave demeanor, 
for she persisted: 

“Yes—but she could consider herself a little 
even if father won’t consider her.” 

“My dear Miss Carlton,” protested the doc¬ 
tor, “I doubt if you can quite enter into your 
mother’s feelings.” 

“My sister,” remarked John with an ironi¬ 
cal grin, “has very definite views on the sex 
question.” 

“She’s a very great student of Freud,” 
amended Lady Lessington. 


12 


SECRETS 


“Freud?” asked the doctor, rather non¬ 
plussed. “Dear me! Dear me!” 

“And, darling,” inquired Lady Lessington 
in saccharine tones, “didn’t you lecture on love 
and marriage—and all that kind of thing?” 

“There’s no such thing as love,” returned 
Audrey with decision. “It’s only the sex com¬ 
plex in the brain.” 

“Is that so?” began the doctor rather an¬ 
grily. His features changed suddenly, and he 
smiled again. “I should like to hear your 
mother lecture on marriage—and the sex com¬ 
plex on the brain,” he said. 

“Mother! On marriage?” she asked pity¬ 
ingly. “Poor, poor mother.” 

“Poor, darling little mummy,” reiterated 
Lady Lessington. “But I tell sister, Doctor, 
that there’s no use judging the past generation 
by ourselves on such a question as marriage. 
Their views are so hopelessly different from 
ours.” 

Dr. Arbuthnot smiled again, not tolerantly, 
because he knew that such a smile would be 
resented, but rather expectantly, as though to 
pave the way for what he was to say. 

“I am an old man, dear lady,” he began, 
“and in my profession I see marriage in all its 


SECRETS 


13 


aspects. I see it alive, and I see it dead. I see 
it beautiful, and I see it ugly. I see it battered, 
and I see it whole, and I really know nothing 
about it. For every separate marriage is a sep¬ 
arate mystery. Men and women come to doc¬ 
tors, and they tell them secrets about marriage. 
But the innermost secrets they never tell. They 
couldn’t if they tried, for in every marriage 
there are secrets that only one man and one 
woman know—only one man and one woman! ’ 9 

He smiled again gently, and this time tol¬ 
erantly. 

“Now,” he resumed, “I’m going to bring 
Lady Carlton in here, and I want to ask you 
not to worry her with questions or advice or 
attentions. Please just leave her to me.” 

“Certainly, Doctor,” agreed John. 

“Thank God!” said Audrey, as the doctor 
went into the bedroom. “Mother will get some 
rest at last.” 

The doctor left the bedroom door open, and 
in a few moments Mary Carlton pushed aside 
the portieres and came into the dressing-room. 
She looked around her, taking in her sons and 
daughters at a glance. 

“My children,” she whispered. 

She was seventy-three years old. Her hair, 


14 


SECRETS 


almost white, was as billowy as that of either 
of her daughters. Her face was wholly beau¬ 
tiful. Even youth would have stopped to look 
at it and marvel at the perfect features, the 
deep gleaming eyes, the full lips that had never 
faded. Her skin had not the charm of that 
of a woman of more tender years, yet it was 
smooth and soft—one could see that. And 
there were wrinkles, deepened now by hours of 
wakefulness, but still soft as roses. On her 
weary face there came a smile, forced, because 
she was unhappy and so tired, yet a smile of 
love for the man she had just left and for her 
children who were before her. 

She fixed her eyes on John, her “big boy,” 
who had tinges of gray in his hair. 

“Johnny, dear,” she cried. 

“Mother, dear.” He went to meet her. 

Her lips quavered, then relapsed in the smile 
which she had always worn for those she loved. 

“There’s no change—yet,” she said. 

“No, dear, but there’s hope,” John replied. 

The mother brushed her hand across her 
face; her eyes filled with tears, but she bravely 
winked them away. 

“Yes,” she admitted, “we must go on hop¬ 
ing, mustn’t we?” 


SECRETS 


15 


Dr. Arbuthnot coughed, twirled the ends of 
his mustache, and assumed his most profes¬ 
sional manner. 

4 ‘Lady Carlton,” he said. 

“Yes, Doctor.’’ 

“You are going to sit down in this cozy arm¬ 
chair and close your eyes and try to rest your¬ 
self. ’ 9 He led her to it. ‘ ‘ And now, Lady Carl¬ 
ton/’ he went on, still bristling his mustache, 
and with all the pompousness of a newly ac¬ 
credited physician on one of his first cases, 
“I’m going to turn your family out.” 

“Yes, Doctor,” agreed Mary Carlton. She 
sat down, and her eyelids closed. She opened 
them again with an effort, and asked, “But 
you’ll see that the door is kept a little 
ajar?” 

“Yes, yes, dear lady; yes, yes! But you 
know he’s still unconscious and-” 

“But,” she broke in feverishly, “if he re¬ 
gains consciousness and—and calls me—and I 

don’t hear him-! He’s always had me near 

him—and you will leave the door open?” 

Audrey was about to speak, but Lady Les- 
sington silenced her with a nod. 

“Wouldn’t you rest better,” she suggested, 
“if the door-” 


16 


SECRETS 


“No! No! I couldn't rest at all if the door 
were shut." 

“But really, Mother," insisted Audrey. 

“Doctor," cried Lady Carlton appealingly. 

“It shall be as you wish," he said quietly. 

“But if I fall asleep, as I may—for I’m so 
tired—you’ll wake me if he wants me, won’t 
you?" 

“I promise I’ll wake you the moment he 
needs you," Dr. Arbuthnot assured her. 

“Thank you. Thank you." 

She fell back in her chair, obviously ex¬ 
hausted. 

“You’ll let us know at once if-’’ whis¬ 

pered John, as he started, at the doctor’s or¬ 
der, to turn out some of the lights. 

“Yes, yes," said Arbuthnot. 

“We’ll be in the drawing-room," said Lady 
Lessington. 

Lady Carlton’s four children went quietly to 
the other room. Two lights remained burning. 
As the doctor was about to turn them out and 
leave the room, Mary Carlton opened her eyes. 

“Yes, John," she said. 

“Now, Lady Carlton," protested the doctor 
with emphasis, “that is the one thing that you 
must not do. Sir John doesn’t want you, and 


SECRETS 


17 


won’t want yon for some time yet. You sim¬ 
ply must close your eyes and relax your body 
and mind; otherwise, when he really wants you, 
you’ll not be fit to go to him. Please accept my 
advice on this matter.” 

6 i Thank you, Doctor, ’ ’ Mary answered. “ I ’ll 
do exactly as you say. Do go back to Sir John 
and let me know when I am needed.” 

“Dear lady, I thank you. It has been nearly 
eighteen hours since you have slept, and if I 
have another patient on my hands I’m afraid 
that I shall have to call back Sir Gilbert and 
myself attend to you. But now you assure me 
that I can return to Sir John with an easy 
mind. And I should prefer to close the door.” 

“Yes, Doctor,” she said, with a smile. 

He went through the door and closed it softly 
after looking back and seeing that Lady Carl¬ 
ton’s lids were closed. 

A few moments passed. She nodded and 
suddenly was wide awake. 

“Yes, John; please call for me again,” she 
whispered. 

She walked softly to the door of the bedroom 
and heard only the vague consultation of doc¬ 
tor and nurses. Then she tiptoed back to a 
desk, opened it, and took from a small upper 


18 


SECRETS 


drawer a book with yellowed pages, bound in 
leather that was worn and wrinkled. It was 
half-locked by brass hinges that snapped 
against protruding clasps on the outer cover. 

As she sat down in the arm-chair, the glow 
of the reading lamp fell softly on the marred 
leather surface of her volume. Her face lost 
its tired expression and gleamed with the hap¬ 
piness of remembrance. 

So many years ago, when she was a girl, she 
had read somewhere a beautiful story of mar¬ 
ried life, and from it had evolved her own phi¬ 
losophy of marriage. Every man and woman 
who had ‘‘become one,” as she had then 
adopted the expression, had their secrets which 
they never could share with another, but which 
each cherished as sacred things, forbidden to 
all the rest of the world. Even the beautiful 
memories were rarely discussed; those which 
were unfortunate never came between them 
after the climax had been reached, but them¬ 
selves were never forgotten. 

All such matters, the young girl had decided, 
must be a bond between husband and wife, a 
bond that, as the pleasant incidents became 
recollections, and the unhappy were forgiven, 


19 


SECRETS 

should become stronger as their links, of fine 
or lesser metal, became more numerous. The 
treasures of which no one else could partake 
would be the richest, she had decided. She had 
waited for the coming of her lover; she had 
never thought to place her inmost confidences 
in writing until she knew that she was in love 
and could then selfishly chronicle the things 
that no one else must know or understand. 

The worn leather book which Lady Carlton 
had before her told the secrets known only to 
her and the man who lay inside the bedroom 
dying. She had always regarded it as a pre¬ 
cious thing, and the ink that was dim on the 
first pages grew darker as it marked the pass¬ 
ing of years. Each line brought memories; 
sometime to-night she might be forced to write 
the words which would bring the book to a 
close—but no, she told herself desperately. 
That never must happen! 

She fondled the pages, kissed them, and be¬ 
gan to read. She saw the shy admission with 
which the journal began, “I have met Mr. John 
Carlton.” Then she recalled the circumstances 
which had immediately preceded that inscrip¬ 
tion, and as she turned the age-mottled leaves, 


20 


SECRETS 


slie saw herself again as a girl of eighteen try¬ 
ing vainly to express with a quill pen the infi¬ 
nite eloquence of a first love. 

Page after page—each brought its delightful 
heartache. She was rapt in happiness when 
her eyes finally closed. 


CHAPTER ONE 


The Marlowe estate at Blackheath was one 
of the many show-places of the suburban sec¬ 
tion of London; in fact, there were so many 
beautiful country seats available for inspection 
even in 1865 that no one paid much attention to 
any of them. There was a vast expanse of 
lawn that, thanks to England’s almost constant 
rain, was perpetually green. Rhododendrons 
flanked the driveway in regular masses, though 
here and there were laburnums and lilacs to 
break the uniformity of the colorful hedge. 

As one looked from the main road, above the 
high wall that surrounded the estate, he saw 
the grim manor house, enlivened in summer by 
streamers of ivy which seemed to reach to all 
parts of the building, enveloping it in a glossy 
covering. When the weather was fair, pea¬ 
cocks stalked majestically on the great lawn, 
and always pigeons darted here and there, re¬ 
turning now and then to the dovecote before 
the front door and cooing pleasantly as they 
scampered along the eaves. 

21 


22 


SECRETS 


Mary Marlowe’s bedroom windows looked 
down upon the pool and the rose-garden di¬ 
rectly behind the bouse and separated by a flag¬ 
stone walk which led to a rear gateway. She 
often sat there, at the door which opened upon 
the tiled terrace of the second story, and mar¬ 
veled at the wonders before her. Sometimes 
she was sorry that the gardeners had been so 
precise as they clipped the hedges, and cared 
for the roses which were placed in such studied 
disorder. She liked the lilies in the pool. 
Their mottled pads came up here and there, 
and the white blossoms burst through the sur¬ 
face of the water and raised themselves with¬ 
out regard for horticultural formulae. The 
horse-chestnut trees, which bloomed so regu¬ 
larly at the entrance of the drive, and which 
bloomed just as regularly, but apparently with 
more abandon at the back of the house, by the 
service entrance at the left, also intrigued her. 
In the front, they seemed so formal. They 
blossomed, and before long shed their burrs 
and nuts along the gravel drive, and on the 
grass. The gardeners religiously raked or 
picked them up. 

But at the rear of the house, the burrs and 
horse-chestnuts were sometimes forgotten. 


SECEETS 


23 


They stayed there for a day or two, and Mary, 
as a girl, had often picked np the chestnuts and 
hoarded them. Even now there was a box of 
them in the desk in which was carefully locked 
her diary and other precious possessions. She 
did not want the horse-chestnuts any longer; 
their skins were shriveled, and the chestnuts 
rattled like peas in a tin dish. But she had 
never been able to throw them away when she 
decided upon a rather infrequent “ house- 
cleaning.’ ’ They were something that had 
been overlooked in the course of the strict 
Marlowe regime; and she cherished them for 
that. 

Twice a week, at this time of year, the 
gardeners opened the gates of the poultry 
houses, though they were on the lookout lest 
any of the proud mothers stray to the front 
lawn with their chicks. Mary watched them as 
they pecked at the lilies of the valley and scur¬ 
ried on disdainfully. She delighted in seeing a 
mother duck gravely escort her progeny to the 
pool, and urge them to try the water. 

Mary knew that she was too old to delight in 
such things. She had just passed her eighteenth 
birthday, and in this age of the good Queen 
Victoria, one of her years must begin to think 


of the more serious things of life, such as spe¬ 
cial functions where one might become ac¬ 
quainted with a possible husband; of marriage, 
before many years; and all that went with mar¬ 
riage, such as rearing fine sons and daughters, 
who would do credit to the family line and to 
the Empire. 

She sat there, looking out at the rose-gar¬ 
den and the pool, utterly happy. She antici¬ 
pated the darkness, when she would see the 
shadow which she had come to know so well 
come hesitantly along the flags, and linger un¬ 
der the balcony. 

Her dream vanished, however, when she re¬ 
membered that she must go to the ball at a 
neighboring manor with her mother and Aunt 
Eliza, and even the thought of the exquisite new 
dress which had been obtained especially for 
the evening failed to dispel her overwhelming 
sense of disappointment. It was her first ball 
and the greatest of the season in Blackheath— 
but she sighed as she realized that she had been 
forced to postpone a rendezvous which to her 
was much more important. 

She went to her desk, and sat down in the 
light of two sputtering candles. After she had 
taken a glossy, leather-colored book from the 




25 


SECRETS 

drawer, she opened it and tnrned a few pages 
nntil she came to one that was blank. Then 
she dipped the quill in the ink and began to 
write. Her eyes wandered here and there as 
she paused thoughtfully after each sentence 
and her lips curved upward in a smile as she 
tried to express in words the momentous 
thoughts which caused the throbbing of her 
heart. 

She hardly noticed Susan, her unattractive 
but most satisfactory maid, who came into 
the room with tapers to light the other candles. 
She wrote on blissfully, until she noticed a 
shadow over her book. Then, following an 
impish idea, she continued, “And I could tell 
my diary so much more about my darling John 
if Susan were not standing behind me, reading 
this.’ 9 

“Why, I wasn’t reading it,” asserted Susan 
quickly, before a word had been spoken. 

Mary laughed. 

“You wouldn’t understand if you did, 
Susan,” she declared. “Tell me, have you ever 
been in love?” 

“No—not yet, that is, Miss,” the maid stam¬ 
mered hopefully. “But I think I understand 
what—why Miss Mary is writing.” 


26 


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“And what would you do, Susan, if you 
were really in love?” her mistress pursued. 

“I suppose”—Susan shifted in embarrass¬ 
ment from one foot to the other—“that I’d be 
—in love just like you are, Miss Mary. But 
isn’t it time to dress, Miss?” she suggested, 
hopeful of a diversion from the delicate sub¬ 
ject. 

“It must be,” sighed Mary, closing her diary, 
and locking carefully the drawer in which she 
replaced it. 

Mary Carlton’s room was great in size, and 
virginal in its every aspect. The wall had 
paper with dainty flowers, pink and white, and 
there hung pictures of a sacred character and 
illuminated texts. 

On the four-poster bed were the crinoline, 
dress, bouquet, gloves and wreath. 

“It will be a grand party—that you are go¬ 
ing to, to-night,” said Susan, as she went to 
the bed and touched fussily the crinoline and 
smoothed the dress itself. 

“Grand?” inquired Mary Marlowe, a little 
absently. “Yes, Susan. Yes! I imagine so.” 

Mary Marlowe was marvelously beautiful. 
Black hair, red full lips, impressed one first. 
But in a moment one saw deep, dark eyes, 


27 


SECRETS 

which were almost ready to give forth tears— 
and for no reason at all. They gleamed, and 
as the lids flickered one saw pools of emotion. 
Something fiery! Something that made man 
wonder at the beauty of woman. Yes, it must 
have been her eyes. 

Slender as a Daphne! Yet as unconscious 
of her charms as could be any daughter of a 
complacent English house in the decorous Mid- 
Victorian era. 

“I heard the mistress telling Miss Channing 

yesterday-” began Susan, as she started 

to do up Miss Mary’s hair. 

“Shh! Shh!” whispered Mary excitedly. 
i 4 Wasn’t that the postman’s knock?” 

“No, Miss Mary,” answered Susan, deftly 
beginning to arrange the elaborate coiffure. 
“That was only the scullery door slamming.” 

“Open the door, please,” directed the young 
lady, “and leave it ajar. Then we shall be cer¬ 
tain to hear.” 

“Yes, Miss Mary,” replied the maid, open¬ 
ing the door and returning to her work. 6 ‘ But, 
oh, Miss Mary, dear, doesn’t your ’eart go all 
of a flutter at this time of the evening when 
you’re expecting the young gentleman’s ‘billy- 
doos’!” 













CHAPTER TWO 


Susan dropped the coils of hair for an in¬ 
stant and stood before the simple dressing 
table in ecstasy of anticipation. Her plain face 
beamed and she touched languishingly the 
bared shoulder of her mistress. How could 
any man help but love her % And the man who 
did love her was such a handsome young gen¬ 
tleman ! How wonderful it was to be the mes¬ 
senger of love! Susan could hardly control 
herself. She wished at the instant that she 
could sing beautifully—or write wonderful 
verses of love—or something. 

c ‘ Susan!” said Mary Marlowe. 

“Yes, Miss,” Susan replied, taking up again 
the coils of her mistress’s hair. 

“I’m getting more and more uneasy,” the 
young lady said, “at having drawn you into— 
all this.” 

“No, Miss,” objected Susan, as she energeti¬ 
cally busied herself again with the curls. 
“You didn’t draw me into it. I came to your 
’elp all on my own, and with a willing ’eart. 
When I saw ’ow you and the gentleman were 
29 


30 


SECRETS 


taken with each other, the way Vs met us 
again and again when you and me was out shop¬ 
ping—and the way I’ve seen him often of a 
night standing outside the ’ouse, or even get¬ 
ting into the garden to look up at your window 
—and the way you’d blush all rosy when you 
saw ’im-” 

Susan threw up her hands and went to the 
bed for the wreath. 

“Yes, Susan, I know,” put in Mary hastily, 
“but what I mean is that-” 

“Yes, Miss?” 

“Oh, you see, Susan, I’m deceiving Mamma 
and Papa in having anything to do with Mr. 
Carlton. It’s very wrong of me, I’m sure; at 
least, I suppose that it is. I—I don’t know— 
but I do know that I should never have allowed 
you to become a partner to my deception. That 
really was wrong.” 

“But, Miss,” said Susan in protest. 

“And I don’t think that it ought to go on,” 
pursued Mary emphatically. 

“But, Miss Mary,” returned Susan in con¬ 
sternation, “what’ll you and Mr. Carlton do 
without me?” 

“I don’t know,” was the girl’s helpless an¬ 
swer. 


SECRETS 


31 


“And yon won’t ever be able to meet him, 
Miss Mary,” said Susan anxiously. “You 
must have your maid with you, for if you can’t 
meet the gentleman with me, you can’t meet 
him at all.” 

“Yes, Susan,” Mary replied wearily. “I 
know.” 

Susan became almost hysterical. 

“And your ‘billy-doos,’ Miss. If Mr. Carlton 
doesn’t send them to you, addressed to me, how 
are you to get them? Your pa and ma would 
soon ’ave suspicions if they saw letters coming 
for you every day. They’d know that some¬ 
thing that shouldn’t was going on.” 

“I know, Susan, but still-” 

“Oh, you can’t mean it,” protested the maid. 
“You can’t mean it; you really can’t. It 
would break your ’eart not to meet the young 
gentleman, nor even to ’ear from ’im. Don’t 
think of me, Miss. I just love ’elping you, 
and-” 

“I know you do, Susan, and it’s so good of 
you. But when a thing’s wrong-” 

She rose from the chair of her dressing table, 
and looked appealingly at her maid. Suddenly 
there came the postman’s whistle and his knock 
at the service door. 


32 


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6 6 There! ’’ she cried immediately, ‘ 1 That was 
the post.” 

“Yes, Miss,” said Susan, her normally res¬ 
tive state becoming more and more agitated. 
“And shall I-” 

“Please do,” Mary ordered her; “run down 
and fetch the letter for me—-just this once.” 

Susan beamed, placed an appreciative hand 
over her heart, and ran from the room. 
Nightly, as the evening post stopped at the 
house, Susan conjured herself as love’s mes¬ 
senger and sometimes, in the secrecy of the 
dark rear hallway, placed the love-letters ten¬ 
derly against her cheek. She had never had a 
real love affair of her own, though some of the 
tradesmen’s boys had occasionally rolled their 
eyes at her, but the paper-covered books which 
she read diligently assured her that her “noble 
youth” would one day come to claim her. Con¬ 
sequently, there was not the slightest taint of 
bitterness or jealousy in her mind as she con¬ 
nived with her younger mistress in this love 
affair. Susan had peeked at Mary’s diary, and 
had reveled in the ardent glances that had al¬ 
ways come when the lovers met, just before the 
maid retired from the spot to wait, a few yards 
away. To her, this experience of Mary, of 


SECRETS 


33 


whom she had become very fond, was the pro¬ 
totype of that which would follow a chance en¬ 
counter with her own “noble youth.’* 

Susan had hardly reached the rear hallway 
before Mrs. Marlowe, and her unmarried sister, 
Eliza Channing, of about the same age, came 
from the front of the house. Mrs. Marlowe, as 
was customary, was talking in vigorous tones. 
There was no doubt in the small community in 
which they lived that she was an overpowering 
influence in the Marlowe household, even though 
her husband was an important figure in the 
banking world, and went to his London count¬ 
ing-house almost every day. 

Blackheath, seven miles southeast of Charing 
Cross, was then, as it is now, one of London’s 
important suburbs. It comprised a group of 
attractive manor-houses, surrounded by exten¬ 
sive grounds, whose owners were men of in¬ 
dependent means, or those whose business suc¬ 
cesses permitted the time required for the long 
and leisurely trip to and from the city. 

Mrs. Marlowe’s features were not pleasing. 
The lines of her face had manifestly come from 
frowns and the prominent lines about her mouth 
had not been so deepened by pleasant smiles. 

Her sister, however, was a strange contrast. 


34 


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One knew at once that she was almost as old as 
Mrs. Marlowe, yet there was something about 
her features that was infinitely sweet and ap¬ 
pealing. The tiny, consistent wrinkles were 
premature; they had been caused by some sor¬ 
row and had been deftly molded into softness 
by something else—perhaps beautiful memory. 
Her natural, appealing smile was always en¬ 
couraging, especially if one were young and 
very much in love. In fact, she had always been 
a favorite of the children in Mary’s younger 
days, and as the girls and boys became older, 
a confidante of the tremendous problems and 
sorrows of youth. In the house of Marlowe, 
however, she shared with him the status of a 
satellite, although her rank was considerably 
below his. 

“It’s always the way,” asserted Mrs. Mar¬ 
lowe, as she approached with determined steps 
her daughter’s room. “Whenever I want any¬ 
thing, I’m invariably kept waiting.” 

“Well, Sister,” protested Miss Channing 
mildly, “you can’t say that I was not ready.” 

Mary, sitting before her mirror in a reverie, 
and thinking only of the letter which Susan 
would soon bring to her, was terrified at the 




SECRETS 


35 


sound of her mother’s voice. She snatched up 
her wreath and placed it quickly on her head. 
When the two women entered the room, she 
was calmly adjusting it, though inwardly panic- 
stricken. 

1 6 Mamma,” she faltered. 

“What, child—not ready yet?” asked the 
mother, sweeping the room with a glance. 
“And where is Susan?” she inquired abruptly. 

“She went downstairs to fetch something,” 
Mary replied, very frightened, hut quite mis¬ 
tress of herself. 

“Went downstairs to fetch something! And 
in the middle of dressing you? And here I am, 
in my poor state of health, with nobody to help 
me dress but your incompetent Aunt Eliza.” 

“I assure you, sister,” remarked Miss Chan- 
ning, with some show of spirit, “that it was 
no pleasure for me to lace you into that ridicu¬ 
lous dress.” 

“My dress is not ridiculous,” bridled Mrs. 
Marlowe. 

“Opinions differ, Sister,” observed Miss 
Channing sweetly. 

Susan rushed into the room, panting, two 
letters in her hand. 


36 


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“What’s the meaning of this!” demanded 
Mrs. Marlowe angrily. 

“Of what?” inquired Susan very guiltily. 
“Please, ma’am, I—I went downstairs to fetch 
something.” 

Mary braced herself to face the worst; she 
looked pleadingly towards Susan. 

“Fetch something,” snapped Mrs. Marlowe. 
“What was it?” 

“A letter, ma’am,” the maid admitted. 

“A letter? For Miss Mary?” asked Mrs. 
Marlowe. 

“Oh, no, ma’am,” said Susan, the acme of in¬ 
nocence, and so ridiculous in her attempt to 
give a false impression that it was eminently 
successful. “No, it was from my mother—for 
me. It was about my poor little sick brother.” 

She went towards the bed, and picked up the 
gloves which Miss Mary was to wear that eve¬ 
ning. She placed them carefully on the dress¬ 
ing table, and, seeing that the eyes of Mrs. 
Marlowe and Miss Channing were no longer 
upon her, hastily put under the pillow of the 
bed the letters which she had so ostentatiously 
tried to hide when she came into the room. 

Mary Marlowe stood before the mirror for 



SECRETS 


37 


a moment, and then turned towards her mother. 

“Is my hair all right—Mamma!” she asked. 

She gave Susan a glance that was at once 
grateful and at the same time incredulous. 
She could not, and she certainly would not, 
have lied so perfectly. She was extremely 
happy that attention had been diverted from 
“Susan’s letter,” yet, after all, it had not been 
exactly right for Susan to tell an untruth to 
the mistress of the manor. In fact, it was al¬ 
most wrong. Yes, it really was wrong! 

Miss Channing smiled. Mary believed at 
once that her aunt had seen the entire proceed¬ 
ing of deception, and that she knew—every¬ 
thing. 

“Your hair,” the spinster told her niece, “is 
perfectly lovely to-night, darling.” 

Mrs. Marlowe had been inspecting her daugh¬ 
ter’s coiffure; her head bobbed from one side 
to the other. 

“Pray allow me, Eliza,” she said in tones of 
severe correction. “Pull the first curl on the 
left a little lower,” she directed Susan, 
“There, that’s better.” 

“Not that we shall ever make much of Miss 
Mary’s hair,” she continued. “I can’t think, 





38 


SECRETS 


child, where you ever got that dreadfully crude 
color from. It certainly never came from my 
side of the family,” she concluded with em¬ 
phasis. 

“All the modern artists greatly admire that 
color of hair,” suggested Mrs. Marlowe’s 
sister. 

Mary gave her a grateful look and, since 
her aunt was several feet away, proceeded to 
squeeze Susan’s hand most affectionately. 

“The best modern artists?” inquired the 
girl’s mother. “Are you, by any chance, al¬ 
luding to that set of irreligious, immoral young 
men who call themselves the something-or- 
other brotherhood?” 

“I’ve never heard of the ‘ sometking-or- 
other brotherhood,’ ” returned Miss Channing. 
“I was alluding to the pre-Raphaelife Broth¬ 
erhood—including Mr. Millais, Mr. Rossetti, 
Mr.-” 

“Eliza! Please!” cautioned Mrs. Marlowe 
sharply. “Not in my daughter’s bedroom. 
Susan, adjust the wreath,” she added with a 
toss of her head. 

Susan fussed with it for a moment, then drew 
back to see the effect. 


39 


SECRETS 

“Miss Mary,” she cried. “How lovely- 99 

“Susan,” rebuked Mrs. Marlowe. 

“Yes, ma’am,” Susan said, hastily stepping 
away from her mistress. 

Mrs. Marlowe drew back and looked criti¬ 
cally at her daughter. Susan stood almost 
spellbound, and Miss Channing was frank in 
her admiration. 

i 1 Oh ! 9 9 she exclaimed, 4 ‘ a wreath on a young 
girl is so lovely. There’s nothing lovelier.” 

‘ 4 Hum, the wreath seems to suit the child well 
enough,” Mrs. Marlowe half admitted. “Now, 
Susan, the hoops.” 

“Yes, ma’am,” said Susan, moving out of an 
apparant trance and going to the bed for the 
crinoline. 

Mary stood up and slipped off her dressing- 
gown. She seemed rather embarrassed as she 
stood there before her mother, aunt and maid. 
Her bare shoulders were soft and white. Susan 
brought the intricate crinoline from the bed 
and deftly whisked it over the girl’s head. It 
stood out grotesquely beyond her white, silk 
petticoat, yet its band neatly fitted Mary’s trim 
waist. 

“Hold yourself up, my dear,” urged her 


40 


SECRETS 


mother. “Miss Fothergill should have given 
you longer with the back-board. I always said 
it. A most genteel woman, but lax-” 

“And a perfect fool, if you ask me,” volun¬ 
teered Miss Channing. 

“I did not ask you, Eliza,’’ said Mrs. Mar¬ 
lowe. She twitched here and there at a flounce, 
while Susan, kneeling, pulled out the hem of 
the young lady’s petticoat. Miss Channing sat 
observingly on the ottoman. “Genteel, but 
lax,” pursued Mrs. Marlowe slowly. “I should 
have preferred your going to Miss Merriam’s. 
But your dear Papa insisted on Miss Fother¬ 
gill’s School, for all his sisters had finished 
there. Now, Mary, hold yourself up. Stand 
erect, my dear.” 

“Yes, Mamma,” said Mary, holding herself 
up and standing as straight as a private at 
military inspection. 

“That’s better,” sighed the mother. “I 
really should like to show Papa to-night 
how well you can look—considering”—she 
stopped speaking to decide what would be the 
correct thing to say—“considering,” she went 
on finally, “considering that you are no beauty, 
and never will be one. Now, your foot, my 
love.” 


SECRETS 


41 


The girl obediently stretched forth her right 
foot, which was at once enclosed in a dainty 
pink satin slipper. Then her mother helped her 
with her left slipper. 

“Yes, that will do,” she admitted with Vic¬ 
torian reluctance, “feet, like faces, are facts 
that cannot be altered.” 

“But Mary takes a size smaller than you 
ever did, Sister,” observed Miss Channing. 

“Your memory must be failing,” Mrs. Mar¬ 
lowe replied curtly. “Susan, the dress, now.” 








CHAPTER THREE 

Susan went again to the bed and, assisted by 
Mrs. Marlowe, lifted the dress from it. Mary 
watched them, with dreamy ecstatic eyes. The 
dress which had been chosen by the impeccable 
Mrs. Marlowe was of delicate pink silk, 
trimmed with yards and yards of exquisite lace 
flounces which were caught up at intervals with 
tiny clusters of pink rosebuds and lovers’ knots 
of pale blue ribbon. The tight fitting bodice, 
pointed in front, was of the pink silk, and the 
dropped shoulder effect was made by a bertha 
of lace outlined with rosebuds. 

“Oh, isn’t it lovely?” she breathed. 

“Fit for a queen, Miss Mary,” agreed Susan 
spontaneously. 

“Susan,” said Mrs. Marlowe sharply. “You 
were not spoken to. Yes, indeed, it is pretty,” 
she went on, turning towards her sister and 
then back to her daughter. “And a pretty 
penny it cost, too. I don’t know what your 
Papa will say when he sees the account. And 
are you sure, Susan, that you’ve laced Miss 
Mary tightly enough?” 

43 


44 


SECRETS 

“Yes, ma’am,” said Susan, as she took 
Mary’s dressing jacket from the floor and put 
it in the wardrobe. 

Mrs. Marlowe was devout in her inspection of 
Mary’s waistline. 

“I believe,” she pondered, “that I could take 
in another inch, my love. Yes—I’m sure that 
I can.” She untied the knot that loosened the 
many inches of laces, pulled vigorously at the 
strings, and then refastened them, unmindful 
of Mary’s physical anguish. 

“There is nothing like a small waist to win 
admiration,” she asserted. “Proper admira¬ 
tion—as I have always told you. There 
now!” 

She stood back to study the effect, while 
Susan hooked up her mistress in the back. 

“Yes, it’s a beautiful fit,” she continued 
critically; “a beautiful fit. And I’m glad that 
I insisted on my lace for the sleeves. You see, 
Eliza,” she went on, turning towards her sister, 
“those little cascades go very well. Very 
sweet, are they not?” 

Miss Channing got up. Any one could see 
the intense admiration in her eyes. She went 
over to Mary, kissed her, and looked at her 
languishingly. 


45 


SECRETS 

“My darling!” she cried. “My beautiful 
darling! ’’ 

“Oh, Auntie,” asked Mary, “do I really look 
nice ?’ 9 

“Your dress, my child, is most becoming,” 
said Mrs. Marlowe decisively. 

This was Mary’s first party dress. Inciden¬ 
tally, it was the first time that Mrs. Marlowe 
had allowed her young daughter to wear a dress 
with the fashionable decollete neck-line, which 
exposed Mary’s white, rounded shoulders and a 
firm young bosom in all their beauty. 

Mrs. Marlowe, outwardly the stern mentor 
of her daughter’s decorum and demeanor, felt 
an inward glow of complacent pride that Mary 
should have attained womanhood with such 
perfection. She marshaled like lightning all 
sorts of plans for brilliant match-making, each 
of which, one after the other, came to a happy 
conclusion in her busy and capable mind. 

“The fashions have changed,” interjected 
Miss Channing, “but this dress reminds me of 
the one I wore when I came out. Don’t you 
remember it, Sister?” 

Mrs. Marlowe paid the scant attention of a 
“yes, yes, yes,” and continued her strict scru¬ 
tiny of Mary’s attire. 


46 


SECRETS 


“Now, Mary,” she suggested, “a pretty an¬ 
kle is never indecorous to show, and it should 
not always he hidden from rich and aristocratic 
young men. Now, as you curtsey you could 
very properly do this.” She lifted Mary’s 
dress an inch above her perfect ankle, and her 
daughter obediently looked down to note the 
presumably chaste hut enticing effect. “And 
as you dance, Mary,” her mother went on, 
“there will he opportunities for you to show 
your pretty ankle—and you need not have the 
slightest chagrin. Like this, for instance-” 

She stood away from Mary, leaped ungrace¬ 
fully from one foot to the other, and with prac¬ 
ticed hand raised her dress from the floor at 
each caper to exactly the proper margin above 
her rather bulky ankles. Her face bore a look 
of stern complacency. 

Miss Channing giggled, and her sister turned 
to stare at her inquiringly. “Put on your 
gloves, my dear,” Mrs. Marlowe ordered her 
daughter. 

Mary started carefully to pull on her long 
gloves. 

“And was your dress so pretty, Auntie?” 
she asked, returning to Miss Channing’s spoken 
memory of a moment ago. 



SECRETS 


47 


‘ ‘ Susan,’’ interrupted Mrs. Marlowe, not 
meaning to break in, but all intent on the dress¬ 
ing operation, ‘ ‘ does the waist seem at all loose 
now?” 

“No, ma’am; it fits like a glove,” said Susan 
emphatically. 

“My dress!” resumed Miss Channing 
eagerly. “Yes, darling, yes! It was lovely, 
with Mamma’s liking for the flounces caught 
up with the rosebuds. Of course, you remem¬ 
ber, Sister.” 

Again Mrs. Marlowe did not mean to be un¬ 
kind to her sister, but she was still very intent 
on Mary. 

“Yes,” she asserted, “and I remember your 
beau, who called the next afternoon, and how 
dear Mamma disapproved. Now, Susan, the 
handkerchief, please.” 

She acted before Susan, and herself picked 
up the handkerchief. Miss Channing’s eyes 
lost their sparkle of the moment, and she be¬ 
came her normal spinsterish self. 

“Hold the handkerchief so, my love,” illus¬ 
trated Mrs. Marlowe, “so that the lace will 
show.” 

Mary took it, looking carefully at the lace, 
and said, “Yes, Mamma.” 


48 


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“And the bouquet,” demanded her mother. 
‘‘ Susan, where is the bouquet 1 ’ ’ 

Susan quickly fetched a tiny bunch of deli¬ 
cate flowers from the bed and pinned it on 
Miss Mary’s bodice. 

“Very good,” remarked Mrs. Marlowe, on 
seeing the ensemble of her daughter’s evening 
costume. “Very good, indeed, my dear.” 

“Damn it, James,” came a voice from the 
corridor, as a door slammed. 

“Ah, here’s Papa,” said Mrs. Marlowe. 
“He’s just in the nick of time to see us before 
we go.” 

She walked towards the door and heard an¬ 
other door slam violently. 

“Oh, dear, oh, dear,” she murmured. “He 
always slams the door like that when he is in a 
perfect temper. I’m afraid something has put 
him out.” 

“I wish something would,” said Miss Chan- 
ning. “It’s about time that he became inter¬ 
ested in something besides that office of his.” 

“Eliza!” rebuked Mrs. Marlowe. 

“Very well, Sister,” she retorted. She 
went to Mary, who was standing near the al¬ 
most petrified Susan, and put her arm lovingly 
around the waist of her niece. 


SECRETS 


49 


“Darling,’’ she whispered, “I’m going to tell 
you a secret. Your dress is very lovely—but 
you’re much lovelier than your dress.” 

“Auntie!” returned Mary delightedly. 

“And you’ll be the belle of the ball,” Miss 
Channing went on, “and all the gentlemen will 
fall in love with you. Gracious,” she said sud¬ 
denly, “here comes your father. And in what 
a temper! ’ ’ 

“I want to see my daughter,” boomed a 
voice. 

The door of Mary’s bedroom was flung open, 
and her father rushed in. The girl stood before 
him rather defiantly; she realized what was to 
come. Susan’s intuition had caused her 
to run to the far side of the bed. But both Mrs. 
Marlowe and Miss Channing were gravely per¬ 
plexed. 

“Well, Miss,” thundered Marlowe, confront¬ 
ing his daughter. 

He was the pompous, successful English 
banker. 

Frequently he banged the doors of his house, 
and very often he spoke tartly to Miss Chan¬ 
ning. He also made pertinent remarks to the 
servants on occasion, though he usually left 


50 


SECRETS 


such outbursts to his better qualified wife. 
Miss Channing observed privately that her 
brother-in-law slammed doors and spoke 
harshly to servants because, when his di¬ 
gestion was none too good, he had the good 
sense not to try to make life uncomfortable 
for his wife. 

None of the women, however, had ever seen 
him in such a state of temper. His “mutton- 
chop” whiskers bristled angrily; his gray eyes 
snapped. He glared at the four women in the 
room, concentrating his gaze momentarily on 
his daughter. 

“Oh, William,” cried Mrs. Marlowe, “what 
has she done?” Her voice became a wail. 

He paused, his eyes flashing malignantly. 

“Your daughter,” he said finally, “has dis¬ 
graced us all, Alice.” 

It was the superb moment of his twenty years 
of married life. Now he was dominant. 

“Disgrace!” cried Mrs. Marlowe. “No! 
No!” 

“She has disgraced us all,” he declared, 
frowning at the girl who stood immovable be¬ 
fore her dresser. 

Miss Channing stepped between Marlowe 
and his daughter. 



A First National Picture. Secrets. 

“WE ARE GOING TO AMERICA. MARY.” 




































































" 

- 





























< 
























- ; 

























SECRETS 51 

“I’m sure,” she protested quietly, “that 
Mary has done nothing of the sort.” 

Marlowe waved her away. 

“Miss Channing, stand aside,” he demanded. 
In spite of her temerity, she obeyed his order. 
“I know everything,” the father said solemnly, 
walking with clenched fists towards Mary, who 
stood silent and motionless. 

“Oh, William, what is it? Tell us all about 
it,” urged his wife wildly. 

“Your daughter, Alice,” began Marlowe, 
with a successful attempt to place thunder in 
his voice, “has been grossly and systemati¬ 
cally deceiving her parents. She has entered 
into a disgraceful entanglement-” 

“Dear me,” moaned Mrs. Marlowe. 

“There have been meetings—letters—prom¬ 
ises. Do you dare deny it, Miss!” 

Mary shook her head. 

“No, Papa,” she whispered. 

“Be silent,” he thundered on, almost before 
the words were out of her lips. 

“And who is it, William; who is the man?” 
asked the now curious Mrs. Marlowe. 

“It’s young Carlton,” he replied. 

“Mary! Oh! Mary!” Mrs. Marlowe wished 
that she had brought her smelling salts to her 


52 


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daughter’s room. “A mere clerk in your 
father’s office.” 

“A clerk,” said Mary, breathlessly but cou¬ 
rageously, “but not a m-mere clerk.” 

“Hold your tongue, Miss,” interdicted Mar¬ 
lowe; “how dare you correct your mother?” 

The scene had been too much for Susan’s 
uncertain nerves. All of a sudden, she went 
to the bed, jumped on it, and began to cry and 
scream. 

“Susan!” ordered Mr. Marlowe emphati¬ 
cally. 

“Now, Susan,” shrilled Mrs. Marlowe plain¬ 
tively. 

“Susan, stop that noise; stop it, I say,” in¬ 
sisted Marlowe. 

But Susan’s hysterics continued. 

“She’s got the ‘high-strikes’ again,” decided 
Mrs. Marlowe. 

“Will you stop that damned noise?” shouted 
Marlowe. 

“William! Oh, William!” protested his 
wife. 

“Pull yourself together, girl,” said Miss 
Channing encouragingly, though Susan con¬ 
tinued to “high-strike.” 

“Get her out,” suggested Marlowe. “Let’s 


53 


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pour water over her or something.” He 
grasped a pitcher of water, sprinkled some 
violently over the maid and, after several such 
efforts proved ineffective, started to throw the 
entire contents of the pitcher over the unhappy 
Susan. 

Mary Marlowe suddenly became the very ef¬ 
ficient mistress of her own bedroom. 

“No, Papa,” she said decisively. “You 
must at least let me take care of Susan. 
Susan!” she said. 

The tumult of Susan subsided to a certain 
extent. 

“Susan!” Mary commanded again and there 
was much less noise in the room. 

“Susan, dear,” she urged quietly. 

The shrieks became sobbing gasps, and finally 
deep breathing on the part of Susan told every 
one that her “spell” was over. 

Marlowe glared at the two young women. 
His attitude was rather Napoleonic. 

“Well?” he inquired vigorously, for he could 
think of nothing more forcible to say. 

Susan’s lids opened slightly, and then one 
could see her eyes. 

“Oh, Miss Mary,” she said, gaspingly, “you 
and the young gentleman—and he’s such a 


54 


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’an’some young gentleman—and yon such a 

pr—such a pretty young 1-lady-And you 

love each other so true.” 

Mr. Marlowe, despite his embarrassment at 
Susan’s unusual behavior, nodded his head 
sagely, as though to say, ‘ ‘ There you have it! ” 
His wife glared at Susan, who now stood self- 
convicted. 

“You wretched girl,” Mrs. Marlowe finally 
said. 

“Exactly,” agreed her husband in a fury. 

“You’ve been the go-between in this dis¬ 
graceful affair,” accused the mother. “You’ve 
known of it all along.” 

“Exactly,” said Mr. Marlowe, who was re¬ 
gaining his composure. 

“The slyness and ingratitude of the lower 
classes is appalling,” continued Mrs. Marlowe, 
raking Susan from head to foot with angry 
glances. 

“Exactly,” agreed her husband, realizing 
that he was no longer the main figure in the 
situation, but waiting for a chance again to re¬ 
sume his former position. 

“You will take a month’s wages, Susan,” 
asserted Mrs. Marlowe, “and leave this house 
the first thing to-morrow.” 


SECRETS 55 

“But, Mamma,” protested Miss Mary, “it 
was all my fault. I asked Susan to-” 

“Be silent,” ordered her father. 

“Yes, the first thing to-morrow,” reiterated 
Mrs. Marlowe, “and without a character. 
Leave this room, Susan.” 

Mary seized Susan’s hand and said in a 
fervent whisper, “I’m sorry; oh, I’m so sorry, 
Susan. I’ll never forget you.” 

“Don’t you worry about me, Miss Mary,” 
insisted Susan, casting at Mr. and Mrs. Mar¬ 
lowe a malignant glance which softened only 
when it came upon Miss Channing, who held 
the water-jug, ready to repel another attack of 
“high-strikes.” Miss Channing, thoroughly 
bewildered by the proceedings, then decided 
that the water-jug would not be in immediate 
need and replaced it on the wash-stand. 






CHAPTER FOUR 


Marlowe coughed violently and turned to¬ 
wards Ms daughter. 

“Now, Miss,” he asked, “what have you to 
say for yourself!” 

“Nothing, Papa,” she replied. 

“Nothing!” shouted the angry father. “We 
shall see about that. ‘Nothing.’ That and sim¬ 
ilar impudence was all I could get out of the 
young scoundrel when I confronted him with 
your last shameless letter tMs afternoon.” 

“My letter-” whispered Mary. 

“Yes, your last shameless letter,” he re¬ 
peated. “It was a love letter, Wife,” he went 
on in vigorous explanation, “and of the most 
brazen character. There were actually twen¬ 
ty-five crosses after the signature.” 

“Not twenty-five,” protested the horrified 
mother. 

“I counted them,” said Marlowe firmly, 
“and there were twenty-five.” 

“Oh, Mary,” burst out Mrs. Marlowe, walk- 
57 


58 


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ing unsteadily to the ottoman on which her 
sister, open-mouthed, was sitting, “you have 
broken your poor mother’s heart.” 

“Were there really twenty-five of them?” 
asked Miss Channing suddenly, with tremen¬ 
dous interest. 

“But how”—faltered Mary—“how did you 
get my letter?” 

“You may well ask, Miss,” he replied, with 
impressive solemnity. “Young Williams,” he 
went on, after an equally impressive pause, 
“who sits next to this scoundrel at the office, 
found a letter on the floor. He picked it up and 
glanced at it, and that was enough. The honest 
lad saw where his duty lay. Without a mo¬ 
ment’s hesitation he brought the letter—direct 
to me.” 

“Mr. Williams is jealous of John,” cried 
Mary breathlessly. 

“John!” almost shrieked Mrs. Marlowe. 
“You call him John?” 

“Yes, John,” repeated Mary, with desperate 
courage. “John told me so and Mr. Williams 
is only too glad to hurt him. He wants John’s 
place.” 

“And he has John’s place,” said Marlowe 
grimly. “He has it.” 


SECRETS 59 

“Oh, Papa, what have you done?” the girl 
asked tremulously. 

“I dismissed the young scoundrel on the 
spot,” said her father, turning immediately to 
his wife for the nod of approbation which came 
in quick response. 

“But he’s not a scoundrel, Papa,” insisted 
Mary, with soft defiance. “He’s not—a 
scoundrel.” 

“Mary!” 

Her mother had no sooner uttered her name 
than Marlowe shouted, “How dare you contra¬ 
dict your father?” 

The girl stood stolidly before him, her lips 
trembling. She was panting with emotion. 

“I repeat it,” Marlowe went on; “he’s an 
ungrateful young scoundrel! It was only an 
act of charity on my part when I gave him a 
stool in my office. I think you understand, 
Alice,” turning towards his wife, “that his 
father, who went through the bankruptcy court 
a few years ago, was a sort—a sort of acquaint¬ 
ance of my younger days, and, of course, I 
didn’t want to-” 

“Papa,” said Mary quietly, “he was your 
best friend. John told me so.” 

11 Silence, ’ ’ demanded the outraged man. He 



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paused for a few seconds, as though to nullify 
beyond question any effect of his daughter’s re¬ 
minder, and started to pace the room. 

4 ‘When I confronted the young scoundrel,” 
he resumed, “and asked him to give me an ex¬ 
planation, he refused to give me one, so I wrote 
a check for his week’s salary and dismissed 
him then and there.” His rapid pace up and 
down the room became less energetic. He 
asked his wife, “Would you believe it, Alice, 
that man had the insolence to take the check 
from me, tear it up, and throw it on the floor!” 

Miss Channing had been watching and listen¬ 
ing very closely, though she had kept herself in 
the background. But when she heard of the 
theatrical gesture of the young man who tore 
up his employer’s check, and almost literally 
threw it in his face, she could no longer restrain 
herself. 

“Bravo!” she cried. “Bravo, John!” 

She rose from the ottoman again and went 
to her niece. It was as though she were at¬ 
tending some performance and approved it 
greatly. 

“Now, Eliza, you’ve no right to take her 
part,” interpolated Mrs. Marlowe. “Tou sim¬ 
ply have no right.” 


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61 


“What is the meaning of this?” asked Mr. 
Marlowe, in superb agreement. “How dare you 
interfere?” 

“Because a real man is concerned,” she 
snapped defiantly. “He must be a real man, 
for he loves Mary, and he threw your check 
at you. That’s the kind of a man for me—one 
who is not afraid to love, and is not afraid to 
do anything to prove that his love is bigger than 
the petty disapproval of some one who is not 
so great as he thinks himself to be. Mary!” 
She went again to the girl, and this time placed 
her arm around her. “Don’t ever mind,” she 
urged. “My darling,” she continued, with all 
the fervor of a lover, “I never thought that 
there was a man in the world worthy of you— 
but now I am beginning to believe that I have 
been wrong. If you love him so much, do any¬ 
thing for him; please, Mary darling, don’t let 
things that seem so big to-day make you un- 

happy all your life. If you love-” 

“Miss Channing,” pronounced Marlowe 
urgently, “oblige me by leaving the room this 
instant.” 

“And as for you,” Miss Channing said furi¬ 
ously, “you’re a pompous, selfish-” 

“Silence,” cried Marlowe, with a hasty look 




62 SECRETS 

towards his wife. Seeing that she continued to 
approve his stand, he pointed to the door. 

Miss Channing took a few steps towards the 
door. 

“And an overbearing tyrannical-” 

“Silence!” shouted Marlowe. 

“Brute,’’ concluded Miss Channing, leaving 
the room and banging the door behind her. 

“This is outrageous,” asserted Marlowe, 
looking at the slammed door. 

“I think she must be mad,” agreed his 
wife. 

“Yes, she must be mad,” went on Marlowe, 
half forgetting the cause of the present quar¬ 
rel. “I think that this disgraceful affair has 
robbed her of her few remaining wits. And if 
this sort of thing ever happens again,” he 
added warningly, “it will be impossible for 
your sister and me to live under the same 
roof.” 

“It’s envy, William,” consoled Mrs. Mar¬ 
lowe, “purely envy. In fact, envy’s at the bot¬ 
tom of it all. Poor Eliza can never forgive my 
having married and having brought a daugh¬ 
ter into the world.” 

“Your daughter, Alice,” chided her husband, 
“is scarcely a matter for envy.” He turned 


SECRETS 


63 


suddenly towards Mary. “Now, Mary,” he 
said, becoming conciliatory and paternal, “I 
insist that you make a clean breast of every¬ 
thing.” 

“Very well, Papa,” she agreed quietly. 

She stood there, a hurt look in her eyes. She 
faced her father courageously, but tradi¬ 
tional obedience caused her to gaze about the 
room guiltily. She had overturned the lares 
and penates of the Marlowe family, and, for 
that, she was very sorry. She saw her angry 
father and her chagrined mother, and she 
wished that she had not caused them trouble 
and suffering. But she thought of John—her 
John, and the look that met the inquiring gaze 
of her parents was again defiant. She thought 
of John Carlton—and nothing else mattered. 

“What I don’t understand is this,” inter¬ 
jected Mrs. Marlowe perplexedly. “How did 
you become acquainted with the young man? 
You certainly never were introduced to him— 
and how can one possibly become acquainted 
without an introduction?” 

She stopped triumphantly; surely these were 
unanswerable questions that would bring the 
girl to her knees in a fit of remorse. 

Mary did not look at either of them. 


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“We—met first, Papa,” she said in a low 
voice, “at yonr office.” 

“At my office,” bellowed Marlowe. 

“Yes, Papa,” she continued dreamily. 
“Mamma and I were fetching you home in the 
victoria. We went into the office for a mo¬ 
ment or two, and as we were going into your 
room, I—I dropped my parasol, and Mr. Carl¬ 
ton picked it up—and handed it to me.” She 
paused and concluded, “And then—we looked 
at each other.” 

“Looked at each other. Quite natural,” pur¬ 
sued Marlowe sarcastically. “You could 
hardly help it.” 

“Well, Mary!” sought her mother, with ob¬ 
vious petulance. 

“I mean just that,” eventually returned 
Mary; “we looked at each other—and I loved 
him—and he loved me.” 

Her cheeks flushed, not for the shame with 
which she stood branded in her parents’ eyes, 
but in idyllic reminiscence. She pursed her lips 
thoughtfully, and her eyes brightened. Her 
parents regarded her with open amazement; 
this horrible thing was unbelievable, even 
though the admission came from their own 
daughter. 


SECEETS 


65 


“Loved? Loved?” cried the mother. 

“Loved! Looked at each other—and— 
loved ?” echoed Marlowe, turning towards his 
wife. 

“Yes, Papa,” said Mary. 

The parents exchanged outraged glances, 
and Marlowe approached his wife solemnly. 

“This, Alice,” he suggested, a gloomy tone 
of sorrow in his voice, “appears to be a case 
for the doctor.” 

“No, Papa, no!” protested Mary earnestly. 
“I—I am not mad. Of course I didn’t know 
I loved him then; I didn’t even know what love 
was. It was only after—after we had met 
again and written to each other, that I—oh! 
—I understood everything.’ 9 

“Indeed!” smiled Marlowe unpleasantly. 
“And pray, what did you understand?” 

“That I’d loved him from the first moment, 
and would go on loving him all my life,” ex¬ 
plained Mary quickly. 

“Ah-?” cried Marlowe, his lips curl¬ 

ing. 

Mrs. Marlowe, however, was really in deep 
distress. She had never heard of such frank 
admissions by young women in even lower mid¬ 
dle-class families. 


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“Mary, how can you say such dreadful im¬ 
modest things?” she moaned. 

Marlowe dropped his sarcastic attitude and 
became once more the irate father. 

“They are a great deal more than immod¬ 
est,” he boomed. “They are positively unlady¬ 
like.” 

“She takes a good deal after your poor sis¬ 
ter, Lucy, William,” broke in Mrs. Marlowe 
thoughtfully, “of whom-” 

Marlowe walked towards the window with 
the stern rebuke, “Alice!” 

“Of whom the least said the better,” she 
went on briskly, in willing capitulation to his 
wishes. 

“Quite so,” agreed Marlowe, mollified. 
“Now, young lady,” he continued, walking 
again to the center of the room, “how often 
have you met this young man!” 

“Eighteen times, Papa,” said Mary, with¬ 
out a moment’s hesitation. 

“Eighteen?” asked the astounded Mrs. 
Marlowe. 

“Shh,” warned Marlowe. “Allow me to 
question this young woman, Alice. Where did 
you meet him? I am determined to get at the 
bottom of this—family disgrace.” 


SECRETS 67 

44 Sometimes in the street—and sometimes in 
the garden.” 

44 Oh!” almost shrieked the mother. 

44 In this garden!” Marlowe asked. 

44 Yes, Papa.” 

44 I have never heard of such audacity in my 
life!” he asserted. 44 And how often have yon 
corresponded, Miss!” 

44 Every day since our second meeting,” she 
admitted, with little show of feeling, 4 4 and 
sometimes oftener.” 

44 0ftener!” exclaimed Mrs. Marlowe incred¬ 
ulously. 

44 Oftener!” inquired Marlowe, still echoing 
his wife’s exclamations and expanding on them 
with thoughts of his own. 4 4 How could you 
write oftener than once a day!” 

44 By writing twice,” said Mary frankly. 

44 Twi-” began Marlowe, but even that 

word failed him. He thought solemnly for a 
moment, but when he saw that his wife was 
regaining her poise, and might at any time take 
the family reins, he faced her and protested 
with a grave voice. 

4 4 There, Alice, you are most emphatically to 
blame. How was it that you never noticed the 
daily arrival of those precious letters V 7 


68 


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“But I assure you, William-” Mrs. Mar¬ 

lowe started to reply, when Mary interrupted. 

“Mamma is not to blame, Papa,” she said 
bravely. “I told Mr. Carlton to address all bis 
letters to me to Susan.” 

‘ 1 That wicked girl! ’’ put in tbe angry mother. 
“That sly, deceitful girl!” 

“No, Alice,” silenced her husband, with a 
lofty gesture, “it’s quite useless speaking. No 
comment of ours can adequately describe your 
daughter’s conduct, and the conduct of her— 
her accomplices in this scandalous affair. For 
the present, there’s no more to he said. You 
will, of course, Wife, go alone to the party this 
evening. You had better say that your daugh¬ 
ter has contracted a slight chill, and that you 
felt it would be inadvisable to expose her to the 
night air.” 

“A slight chill?” asked Mrs. Marlowe. 

Marlowe paused, that the effect of his words 
might be more lofty. “A slight chill,” he re¬ 
peated. 

“But, William,” his wife implored, “I don’t 
know how I shall possibly be able to bear up 
with all this on my mind.” 

“A—slight—chill,” he said again with force¬ 
ful emphasis. 


SECRETS 


69 


Mrs. Marlowe sighed weakly. “Very well, 
then, ,, she agreed, and with a tearful, bewil¬ 
dered glance at her daughter she swept from 
the room, the sides of her dress swishing vig¬ 
orously as they struck both sides of the 
doorway. 

















* 


























CHAPTER FIVE 


Marlowe’s respect for his own authority had 
increased tenfold in the past few moments. He 
at last saw himself in the position to which he 
had always unsuccessfully aspired, with a 
weighty problem which demanded a weighty 
decision from him alone. He turned to his 
daughter. 

“As for you, Miss,” he said austerely, “you 
will have to go to bed without your supper. 
And until your mother and I have decided what 
to do with you, you will remain here under 
lock and key. You understand me?” Mary 
was not really hungry, though she would have 
relished the buffet supper waiting downstairs. 

“Yes, Papa.” She had a very sincere regard 
for the unpleasantness of the whole situation, 
but she did not seem appreciatively impressed 
by the methods that her father used in dis¬ 
posing of it. The past hour had shown—as Miss 
Channing alone had been able to perceive— 
that the girl had an inflexible will, not unpleas¬ 
antly domineering like that of her father, but 
71 


72 


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mixed with the tenderness that had character¬ 
ized the life of Miss Channing’s and Mrs. Mar¬ 
lowe’s mother. She was sympathetic, utterly 
lovable in the eyes of man or woman, and 
eager to be loved. Yet Miss Channing realized 
at once that Mary, her love for a man having 
been so ardently aronsed, would allow no such 
pranks of fate as those which had broken her 
own spirit to ruin her life. 

“Very well,” resumed Marlowe. “That is 
all I have to say for the present—except to 
hope that before you go to bed you will 
ask your Maker”—he paused reverently—“on 
bended knees—to forgive your wickedness.” 

With an appealing look of commiseration, 
he started for the door. 

“Please, Papa,” urged Mary, 

“Well?” He turned towards her. 

“Please,” she entreated, with panting cour¬ 
age, “will you tell me why—why you and 
Mamma are so—so against my marrying Jo— 
I mean, Mr. Carlton?” 

Marlowe sputtered with wrath. 

“You dare—you have the effrontery—to 
ask me such a question? A beggar clerk, an 
impudent—adventurer, the son of a bankrupt 
—the-” 



73 


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“But,” protested Mary, with a cry of pain, 
“oh, no! Please don’t go on. I—I can’t bear 
it.” 

His voice trembling, Marlowe stepped to¬ 
ward her and said, “I would sooner see my 
daughter lying in her coffin than the wife of 
such a fellow. Is that clear?” 

“Yes, Papa,” the girl answered in a whisper, 
bowing her head, “but there’s one thing I must 
tell you. I’ve been deceiving you for a long 
time, and, though you may not believe it, I hate 
deceit. I’m not going to deceive you any more, 
Papa, so I must tell you now that, whatever you 
may do, I shall go on loving Mr. Carlton and— 
in three years’ time, when I become of age, I 
shall marry him.” 

Marlowe’s nostrils quivered with rage, and 
he looked at his daughter with ironical courtesy. 

“Indeed? Indeed,” he murmured. 

He drew the key from the inner side of the 
door with elaboration of movement, glanced 
with majestic sternness at his daughter, who 
stood, her eyes gleaming, looking straight be¬ 
fore her, and went out. Mary heard the inser¬ 
tion of the key, followed by the sharp click of 
the lock. 

She stood there motionless for a moment, and 


74 


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then, after glancing at the door, tiptoed across 
the room to it and, with one ear almost at the 
panel, listened tensely. Satisfied that her 
father would not return, she ran quickly to the 
bed, thrust her hand under the pillows, and 
drew out two letters. 

“Two,” she murmured, as she sat on the bed 
and opened one of the letters. “Sweetheart, I 
am dropping this in your letter box myself,” 
she read under her breath. “We’re found out, 
and I must see you to-night. Your fond father 
has given me the sack. I shall be in the garden 
after dark, and shall stay here till daybreak 
if necessary. I shall whistle at intervals. In 
haste, darling—John.” 

She sat there for a moment, wild-eyed and 
breathing quickly, and then sprang to her feet 
and ran to the center window. Drawing the 
curtains apart and pulling up a blind, she lifted 
the window sash and peered down into the 
garden. 

“Not yet,” she whispered, shaking her head. 
Then she went to her dressing-table, placed her 
letters under a candlestick, and returned to 
the window, where she again drew the curtains. 
A noise at the door startled her and she turned, 
with frightened eyes, to see it open cautiously. 







jjjgp^' - l 


m - % 


wmm 


A First National Picture . 

dr. McGovern told them to keep up hope. 























75 


SECRETS 

As she saw Miss Charming enter the room, 
carrying a paper parcel under her arm, she 
gave a sigh of relief. 

“Shh,” Miss Channing cautioned, listening 
attentively for a moment. “It’s all right/’ she 
assured the girl, closing the door softly. Then 
she ran to Mary and caught her in her arms. 

“My darling / 9 she whispered in an under¬ 
tone, “I was just going into the garden to fetch 
the ladder which Duncan has left against the 
pear tree.” 

“The ladder?” asked Mary. 

“Yes,” her aunt returned. “I meant to 
carry it to the house and climb in at the win¬ 
dow.” 

“Oh, Auntie,” gasped Mary, horrified at the 
thought of Miss Channing climbing a ladder. 

“But then,” the spinster continued with a 
chuckle, “it struck me that your father, being 
such a clever man, might have left the key in 
the lock. And so he had.” She extended her 
parcel to Mary. “I’ve brought you something 
to eat, darling. It’s all I could lay my hands 
on in the dark pantry without the cook discov¬ 
ering me. Everything on the buffet had been 
put away.” 

“How sweet of you,” cried Mary, giving her 


76 


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aunt a hug. She took the parcel to the bed, and 
on unwrapping it found a piece of cake, two 
apples and a leg of cold chicken. 

“It’s poor fare, Mary,” said Miss Channing, 
“but I couldn’t have thought of your going 
to bed hungry. I’d have brought you the wing, 
darling, but there was no knife handy, and a 
leg’s so much easier to tear off.” 

Mary was half laughing, half in tears; for the 
first time she feared that her emotions would 
give way. 

“And I was obliged to wrap them all up in 
a sheet of The Times," her aunt went on. 
“You won’t mind, dear, will you?” 

“No, no,” insisted Mary. 

i( Tifie Times is such a clean newspaper,” 
Miss Channing continued, relieved at the recep¬ 
tion of the impromptu parcel. 

“How dear of you to think of me, Auntie!” 
Mary exclaimed. 

The older woman’s eyes were suddenly down¬ 
cast, and when she raised them they were glis¬ 
tening with bravely repelled tears. 

“Whom else have I to think of but you?” she 
returned, placing a hasty kiss on the lips of 
her niece. ‘ 4 Darling, you mustn’t be unhappy, ’ ’ 


SECRETS 


77 


she said with a trace of fierceness. “If you’re 
brave and true, all will come out right in the 
end.” 

“Yes, Auntie,” replied Mary with quiet con¬ 
viction, “I know it will.” 

“I came back to-night,” her aunt told her, 
“to bring you something to eat in the first 
place. It is not right to expect one to go with¬ 
out supper, even under these distressing cir¬ 
cumstances—and I see no reason why you 
should not have your proper food. When I 
came to the supper table, your father, who was 
pounding the table for Parker, growled a few 
times, went to the buffet and himself cut a 
slice of ham which he did not eat, and started 
to drink brandy liqueur. At the time I left, 
he had had three and your mother was very 
upset when the carriage came to the door. I 
had to wait until the servants had gone to their 
quarters, though there was little for them to do 
save clear the table. 

“But what I really wanted to see you about 
was—something else,” she confided, her voice 
softening. “Sit beside me on the ottoman,” 
she suggested, and the girl took her extended 
hand and went with her. “I’m rather an old 


78 


SECRETS 


woman—now, Mary”—she smiled as her niece 
began to protest—‘* and a spinster. I know that 
Pm simply tolerated and pitied in this house; 
they think,” she explained without the slight¬ 
est rancor, ‘‘ that I have no other place to go. 
They are partly right in this respect. I have 
no other place where I could go and be happy, 
though, you know, I have my own money. 

“The greatest happiness in my life, Mary, 
after—after I came to live with your parents, 
was when the nurse let me take you in my arms. 
It was an hour after you were born. You were 
so sweet, and I was so happy when I held you 
there and looked down at you. Your little 

puckered features, your warm little-” She 

stopped for adequate words. “I mean, Mary,” 
she added, “that I wished you were mine. 
When I gave you back to the nurse, I tried to 
imagine that you were mine—my own little girl. 
I have never been able to forget those few mo¬ 
ments, and that is why I have always lived 
near you. There were many times when I 
thought that I must go into London and take 
my own lodgings, but I knew that I would 
rarely see you, then, and that I would lose— 
my little girl. To-night, I realized for the first 
time that I must lose you, and—it really made 



SECRETS 


79 


me very happy. For I knew that yon had 
found your own happiness, though, you little 
sinner”—she tweaked Mary’s cheek lovingly— 
“it hadn’t occurred to me that you would fall 
in love so soon.” 




CHAPTER SIX 


Maky said nothing, but placed her hand 
qnietly on Miss Channing’s knee. The older 
woman hesitantly fingered a locket that was sus¬ 
pended on a thin golden chain and which she 
had unconsciously drawn from her bosom dur¬ 
ing the last few minutes. 

“I wonder / 9 she asked with some embarrass¬ 
ment, "if you would like to see—him?” 

"Whom, Auntie?” asked Mary. 

"A boy,” she said slowly, "whom I once 
knew.” 

"Yes, please,” urged the girl eagerly, quickly 
scenting a romance. "Let me see.” 

Miss Channing opened the locket and looked 
fondly at a crude photograph, one of the earli¬ 
er products of the invention which was unper¬ 
fected even in 1865. The dull "tin-type” 
showed a young man in the twenties, with stolid 
profile, and features that betrayed the self-con¬ 
sciousness of the moment. He wore a queer 
sort of cap, which extended down to the ears 
and overtopped several inches of side whiskers. 
The faded* ensemble seemed so grotesque to 
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82 


SECRETS 


Mary’s eyes that she wanted to laugh, but a 
quick glance at her aunt, whose face had such a 
strange expression, caused her instead to clasp 
tightly the older woman’s hand. 

“Wasn’t he handsome?” asked Miss Chan- 
ning, with a pathetic sigh. 

“Yes, Auntie,” agreed Mary quickly—“just 
wonderful. ’ ’ 

“He was my—the man I almost married,” 
the aunt said quietly. She let the locket dangle 
before her breast, and reached for Mary’s 
hand. “I wanted—that is why,” she ex¬ 
plained falteringly, “I have always loved you 
so much, Mary. When I looked at him—and 
knew that it could never be—I thought of you, 
darling—my little girl. I have been so grate¬ 
ful to you all these years; you have brought 
me—such happiness. Tell me, Mary,” she 
asked impetuously, “you are my little girl, 
aren’t you?” 

“Why, yes, Auntie,” Mary replied, greatly 
affected. She threw her arms around Miss 
Channing and kissed her. “Of course I am 
—and you’ll never lose me. Not even if-” 

She stopped to see her aunt looking mistily 
before her. 

“Mary,” she asked suddenly, “would you 


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like to hear to-night—something—something 
I’ve never told any one?” 

“Why, yes, Auntie.” 

“I wonder if you could understand,” the 
spinster ruminated. “Yes, I think you will,” 
she told herself aloud. 

“Tell me, Auntie,” begged the girl. “Tell 
me all about him.” 

“It doesn’t seem so long ago now,” Miss 
Channing admitted. ‘ ‘ But I was only nineteen 
then. We met at a ball in London just after 
he had been commissioned. I saw him only that 
night and twice during the next few days, for 
he was sent to join a company that went up 
from India to Afghanistan. That was in Jan¬ 
uary, and I had only three letters from him 
during the year. He went into Cabul with his 
company, and later was invalided home, before 
the retreat. 

“Those three letters, Mary—I envied you so 
at having one each day, and sometimes two— 
made me sure that he—loved me very much. 
The first was very formal, and the second only 
hinted at affection. But in the third, Mary, 
which he wrote from the Punjab, he said, ‘I 
love you, Eliza, and wish that I might see you.’ 
I had been very sure in London, for on the 


84 


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night before he left he—he patted my hand, 
and said that he hoped soon to return home. 

4 ‘He had to leave the army; he had been shot 
in the leg when he went out with the patrol one 
night, and the surgeons said that he could never 
again stand the strain of marching. He had 
not been home a week, Mary, before he asked 
me to marry him. Or rather, he asked me if 
I would marry him if my parents—your grand¬ 
parents—would give their approval. Your 
grandfather, darling, was a very determined 
man and I advised my suitor to wait a short 
while and establish himself in business before 
taking a wife. 

“He went into a counting-house, and before 
long had enough money, through careful sav¬ 
ing and well-advised investments, to start his 
own business on a modest scale. He decided 
to make a grand coup and when something hap¬ 
pened to the jute market without warning, he 
found himself a bankrupt. 

“You know that that made no difference to 
me, Mary—whether he had a sovereign or ten 
thousand pounds. But he was so chagrined at 
the disgrace that he asked me to meet him out¬ 
side the house. I urged him to be patient, and 
I was certain that my father would make al- 


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lowances for a man who had been in the service 
and had worked so hard at home. I told him 
to call the following Sunday at tea-time, and 
that we might be able to have a moment alone 
together in the garden afterwards. 

“I let only mother know—I did not dare to 
tell my father—that he was coming, and she 
assured me that there would be no mention of 
his recent misfortune. Mother was always very 
tolerant of young people who got into difficul¬ 
ties and I had told her that I was in love—pri¬ 
vately, of course. Your grandmother, Mary,” 
she explained, “was a wonderful person. One 
could hardly tell affairs of the heart to my dear 
sister, but my mother always invited confi¬ 
dences. 

“It happened that my father was on the 
lawn, smoking, when my invited guest arrived. 
Some other young men came with him—includ¬ 
ing your own father. They walked through 
the gate, and, after greeting my father, walked 
to the garden, where mother, my sister and I 
were waiting. My father called aside the boy 
who had come to—to see me. They talked for 
a few moments. I looked around the rose arbor 
and I saw the young man’s face grow white as 
my father talked with him. Father asked him 


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a question or two—I could tell, even from a 
distance—and then pointed to the gate. I saw 
him once afterwards before he married, and 
then I was too ashamed to ask him to come 
across the road.” 

“Before he married?” asked Mary Marlowe 
in horror. “And he didn’t marry—no, of 
course. Did he marry some one else, Auntie ? ’ 9 

“Yes—within the month. She was a very 
fine woman, Mary, and very much in love with 
him. No, don’t look that way, Mary,” Miss 
Channing protested. “He told her about— 
about me, and she was willing to take the 
chance—in spite of everything. She had loved 
him for years, and—I—I—am sure—that they 
were very happy. He died ten years after¬ 
wards. ’ ’ 

“Poor Auntie,” said Mary, her lips quiver¬ 
ing. “I’m so sorry, Auntie. I never real¬ 
ized-” 

“But you must,” cried Miss Channing, pas¬ 
sionately. “I didn’t tell you this just to tell 
a story. I told it to you because—because you 
must know how much I love you. Mary, God 
save you from the loneliness of empty arms, 
the terrible memory of the dream that might 
have come true. You are not like me, Mary; 


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we belong to a different age. You have more 
freedom than I had—I was nineteen before my 
first ball. And when I saw your father, who 
is several years behind the times, send you to 
bed without supper, I decided that I must talk 
to you and”—she added shyly—“tell my story 
—if you wanted to hear it. 

“Mary,” she went on, with intense serious¬ 
ness, “I think that you are really in love. You 
are no longer my baby girl; no girl could have 
championed her lover as you did to-night. 
Darling baby girl,”* she continued in immediate 
contradiction, “don’t let your father or mother, 
nor heaven or earth, keep you from the man 
you love. You could not live as I have lived, 
for you would not have a Mary Marlowe to 
make life worth while. It is wrong for me to 
come here against the wishes of my sister and 
your father, but I could not help it. I had to 
tell you, darling. You understand now, don’t 
you?” 

She clasped the locket that had been hanging 
from its chain and put it back in her bosom. 

“I think so, Auntie. I understand—about 
you,” the girl, now tearful, declared. “But 
what—what shall I do?” 

“Keep on loving him,” Miss Channing told 


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her. 4 ‘Love him always, if you are certain now. 
And let no power on earth, not even your father 
and mother, keep you from him. I have never 
seen him—that is, not in recent years.” Mary 
did not immediately notice the break in her 
colloquy as she went on, “But love him always, 
darling. I know that he must be a fine man.” 

Mary thought for a moment. 

“Didn’t you say that you had not seen him 
in recent years, Auntie?” she asked, curious as 
the possible meaning of her aunt’s phrase 
dawned upon her. 

“Did I?” asked Miss Channing, perturbed. 

“Yes, Auntie. That was what you said. 
What did you mean by ‘recent years’?” 

“Why, I saw John—Mr. Carlton, when he 
was a boy.” 

“And did you know his father and mother, 
Auntie?” Mary asked avidly. 

“Yes, dear, I knew them many years ago,” 
she replied. 

“Tell me about him, Auntie—I mean, John’s 
father,” Mary pressed. “Papa said such bad 
things about him to-night that I could hardly 
hold myself back. Was he such a bad man, 
Auntie? Please tell me; it wouldn’t make any 
difference about—John. And tell me about his 


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mother. John said that she was a beautiful 
woman, but had died soon after his father was 
buried.” 

44 No, he was not a bad man, Mary,” Miss 
Channing said slowly. “Your father was very 
wrong in saying so. And his mother was very 
fine—and—and noble. His father was very—- 
fine—and noble—also.” 

“But, Auntie, why are you crying!” asked 
Mary, turning towards Miss Channing and see¬ 
ing floods of tears coming without restraint 
from her eyes. “Don’t worry, Auntie, I’ll do 
as you say. I won’t stop loving him, and I 
won’t let him stop loving me. Doesn’t that 
make you happier!” 

“Yes, darling,” her aunt agreed, but a fresh 
flow of tears preceded an outburst of sobs. 

“Auntie, what’s the matter!” asked Mary, 
now mystified. 

“No. You can’t understand.” 

“I’m sure I do, Auntie. Now do stop weep¬ 
ing, Auntie,” she said in a desperate effort 
to quell the tears. “I’ll really do anything that 
you ask. Tell me what to dq, Auntie.” 

The spinster turned her eyes towards Mary 
and tried to keep back the sobs. 

“Darling,” she cried, her eyes glazed with 


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tears, “I know that your John must be wonder¬ 
ful and you must—you must leave me, baby 
girl. I know that he must be perfect, and I 
know that you will always love each other. 
Listen to me, Mary,” she said, her breath com¬ 
ing in quick snatches. “His mother married 
him when she knew that he had just come from 
me a month before and she did not care. She 
must have been wonderful to do that. And 
your boy’s father was once—was once—my own 
boy. Don’t you know now, Mary, why I love 
you so much—so much more to-night than 
ever before? This is a kind of—consecration 
—the finest substitute that I could ever have 
had. Please love him; please be good to him 
r—always, Mary.” 

“I will, Auntie,” promised Mary, frankly 
weeping as her aunt’s frame shook with sobs. 
“I will —so much.” 

“Then it’s all right,” said Miss Channing, 
desperately dabbing the tears from her cheeks 
and eyes. “And haven’t I been very foolish 
and sentimental to-night? It really has been 
ridiculous.” 


CHAPTER SEVEN 


The aunt’s mood changed and became girl¬ 
ishly enthusiastic. 

“And what a fine gentleman your beau must 
be,” she exclaimed. “And tell me, dear, is he 
very handsome!” 

“Oh, yes,” Mary replied, somewhat embar¬ 
rassed at the sudden question. “At least, I 
think so.” 

“Has he a mustache, darling, and beauti¬ 
ful long whiskers!” pursued Miss Channing 
eagerly. 

“No—no, Auntie,” said Mary with a shy 
smile. “He hasn’t any mustache—and just 
small whiskers. He’s only twenty-one,” she 
explained , i 6 and the whiskers are—there. ’ ’ She 
touched Miss Channing’s face below one ear, 
to indicate the prevalent and popular “side¬ 
burns.” 

“Oh, but of course,” her aunt went on en¬ 
couragingly, “he could grow them as long as 
he liked, if he wanted to.” The description 
of the lover’s hirsute attainments was not en- 

91 


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couraging, in that age of profuse and profound 
whiskers on all men of merit, but Miss Chan- 
ning was always sanguine when Mary was even 
remotely concerned. 

“I’m sure he could, Auntie,” professed Mary 
hopefully. “But what are they going to do 
to me?” she inquired, her pretty face clouding 
with anxiety. 

Miss Channing hesitated, and sought to evade 
the question. 

“I—I don’t know, darling,” she asserted. 

Her niece looked steadily at her and asked, 
“Please tell me, Auntie.” 

The older woman still hesitated, and she ad¬ 
mitted with some difficulty, “Darling, as your 
Mamma was leaving the house, I heard your 
Papa say, ‘I shall take your child to-morrow 
to—to Peebles.’ ” 

“Peebles?” asked Mary, with a tragic whis¬ 
per. “To—to Uncle Sandy and Aunt Sophia 
at the Manse?” Her stoicism of the evening 
nearly gave way as she sobbed in protest, “No, 
no, no.” 

Miss Channing went to her and held the girl 
to her closely. She herself was almost weep¬ 
ing, for she realized what exile to the gloomy 
Manse in Scotland with austere, provincial rela- 


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93 


tives would mean to the young girl who bloomed 
so radiantly in the happy gardens of England. 
Mary, with an effort, pulled herself together to 
comfort her aunt. 

4 ‘Don’t worry about me, Auntie,” she as¬ 
sured her. “I’ll get through all right, but the 
Manse is such a cold and lonely place. I don’t 
think that any one ever laughed there.” 

“Certainly not your Uncle Sandy and Aunt 
Sophia,” agreed Miss Channing vigorously. 

Mary was about to reply when there came a 
low but distinct whistle from the garden. She 
started, and gave a quick glance at the window. 

“Where’s Papa, Auntie?” she asked. 

“I think he went to his study after Mamma 
left.” 

“You’re sure, Auntie?” she insisted, as an¬ 
other whistle, this time louder, was heard. 
“You had better leave me now,” she proceeded 
rapidly. “Supposing you were found here! 
There’d be a dreadful scene. And—and—I 
want to be alone—to think—and to eat my sup¬ 
per.” 

“Yes, dear, I understand,” agreed Miss 
Channing, who gave no sign that she had heard 
either whistle. “Shall I unhook your dress 
before I go?” 


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“No, no,” replied Mary distraitly. “You 
see, Auntie”—she paused, and then hurried 
on—“it’s a new dress, and so lovely! I want 
a chance to look at myself before I take it 
off.” 

As a third whistle came from the garden, 
Mary threw her arms around Miss Channing’s 
neck. “Good night, Auntie,” she cried, draw¬ 
ing her towards the door. “I’ll so enjoy the 
nice things you’ve brought me to eat. Thank 
you for all your sweetness to me.” 

“And keep up your courage, darling,” Miss 
Channing begged. “And,” she whispered in 
the girl’s ear, “such happy dreams of your 
own, true love.” 

They kissed, and Miss Channing cautiously 
opened the door and glided out but not with¬ 
out a knowing smile that was unobserved by 
Mary. Wild-eyed and alert, the girl listened 
to the receding footsteps. Then she went 
quickly to the dressing table, put out all but 
one of the candles, and placed the remaining 
one in a safe corner of her large closet, leaving 
the room in utter darkness. She tiptoed to the 
window, drew aside the curtains, and stood 
there, silhouetted against the brightness of a 
moonlit sky. 


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95 


“Oh,” she cried happily. “John!” 

“Did you get my letters!” he asked anx¬ 
iously. She saw him now, standing under a 
fruit tree. The whiteness of his face stood out 
among the shadows. 

“Yes, John.” She was trembling with de¬ 
light now. 

“Come down,” he urged. 

“I can’t,” she said; “I can’t come down to 
you. ’ ’ 

“Why not?” 

“Papa’s locked me in,” she explained. 

“Well, then I must climb up,” he announced 
energetically. 

Mary’s voice was edged with fear as she ob¬ 
jected, “Climb? Climb up? No, that’s impos¬ 
sible. You’d hurt yourself. You mustn’t.” 
Then there was an eager change of voice as 
she remarked, “John, if you must climb up 
there’s a ladder; it’s standing against the pear 
tree.” She gestured to the right of the lawn. 
“Yes, yes,” she cried, as he reached it and 
carried it towards the shrubs at the foot of 
the balcony. 

She stood back a little from the window, with 
a frightened sigh of rapture, both hands clasp¬ 
ing her cheeks. Her eyes gleamed with a new 


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fire, and as her heart beat frantically, her 
breath came in short, irregular gasps. 

John stood near the top of the ladder, look¬ 
ing over the ledge of the balcony. He was 
young, very young, though his ‘‘whiskers ’’ did 
come well below his ears, as Mary had de¬ 
clared a few moments ago. His features were 
clean-cut and fine; his smile, almost boyish, 
though his lips seemed ready to be stern, and 
his chin was undeniably determined. Just now 
he was transfixed by the vision before him. 

Then he vaulted over the railing, and eagerly 
went towards the girl, who, frightened by the 
terrific drumming of her heart, walked back 
from the window. She smiled quaveringly, 
beckoningly, and he walked towards the win¬ 
dow, as though in a trance, never taking his 
eyes from her. Suddenly she disappeared into 
the darkness, ran to the door, listened anxiously 
for a second, and came swiftly back to the cen¬ 
ter of the room. 

“Oh, John, ,, she exclaimed in a happy, tim¬ 
orous voice. 

Carlton had hoisted himself inside the win¬ 
dow and was staring at the white figure be¬ 
fore him. 


SECRETS 97 

*‘Come here, I want you,” he demanded in 
hushed ardent tones. 

“Oh, my love—my love,” she sobbed, walking 
towards his outstretched arms. 

“My darling, my darling,” he cried, as she 
came close, and he crushed the dainty figure 
to him. 

Their faces shone in the moonlight; their 
eyes were like unquenchable fire. She felt his 
panting breath on her cheek, and raised her lips 
to his. To each it was something awful, ter¬ 
rible and so wonderful! 

“My darling, my darling,” she breathed, as 
she relaxed deep into his arms. They swayed 
together for moments, as they kissed passion¬ 
ately. 

After a breathless interlude, he began, speak¬ 
ing regretfully, “You know how it all hap¬ 
pened—my infernal—pardon, dear—careless¬ 
ness in dropping your letter.” 

She nodded, and he went on with bitterness, 
“And he went for you, didn’t he, like the lov¬ 
ing parent that he is!” 

“Yes, John.” 

“And now he’s locked you in! Yes, but on 
the whole, I’m not sorry this has happened. 


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It’s brought things to a head—and we’re forced 
to act. Listen, darling.” 

She drew the curtains, went noiselessly to the 
closet, brought out the burning candle, and from 
it lit another. 

He started to outline their future. There 
was nothing here for them now. He could 
not possibly obtain another position, even 
as poor as his had been, in London without 
references. The provinces, even more exacting 
than the metropolis, when the stranger was con¬ 
cerned, were out of the question. He had 
thought of India and Australia, but they would 
be too remote, and Canada was too unsettled 
beyond the cities, in his opinion, to offer much 
opportunity to a youth without hereditary back¬ 
ing. 

But the United States must be different, he 
thought. Men soon became wealthy in that 
great country if they were willing to take risks, 
and the peace after the Civil War had encour¬ 
aged prospecting in the tremendously rich 
though undeveloped sections. 

Her eyes opened wide at this unexpected dis¬ 
course, and she looked at him in admiring won¬ 
der. 

“My God, how beautiful you are,” he ex- 


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claimed hoarsely, interrupting his profound 
talk about his plans. “My queen! My own!” 

He held her hand against his cheek, then led 
her to a chair. 

“My darling,” he continued, trying desper¬ 
ately to think of things other than the girl be¬ 
fore him, “I am going to America. A ship 
sails in three days.” His voice was calm, but 
his intense excitement was evident. “Pm go¬ 
ing there, Mary, so that I can make a fortune 
in a very short time, and come hack to you. 
Then your father, who promptly gave me the 
sack, may feel differently about our marrying.” 

“America-?” asked Mary, under her 

breath. “You?” 

“Yes, darling.” 

“America?” Her eyes became dilated. 

‘ ‘ I must, sweetheart . 9 9 

She puzzled only for an instant, and got up 
from her chair. 

“John,” she cried, “then I must go with 
you.” 

“That couldn’t be,” he returned, amazed at 
the suggestion. 

“It must be,” she said with return to her 
normal decision. “Do you think, John,” she 
asked tenderly, placing her hands against her 


100 


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face, ‘ c that I could live without you now? 
Don’t you understand-?” 

“Yes,” he answered quickly, seizing her 
hands and grasping them like a vise. “And I 
understand that if you run away with me, your 
family will consider that you have disgraced 
them, and will utterly disown you. You would 
have nobody in the world to depend upon but 
me—and I’m only-” 

The expression of breathless amazement on 
her face gave way to one of exaltation. 

“Nobody but you?” she asked softly, glory¬ 
ing in the wistful desire in his eyes. “You’re 
all I want—now, and to the end of my life.” 

“Mary!” he cried, wavering. 

“And I’ll follow you to the end of the 
world,” she went on, seeking his lips. 

“No—no!” He avoided her lips, quickly 
kneeled beside her, and poured kisses on the 
slim hands that he had feverishly seized. “You 
don’t realize—you can’t. Don’t speak,” he 
urged, tense with passion. “You’ve never 
known anything but ease and comfort. If you 
come to me, you’ll know poverty and hardship. 
I’m desperately poor—with only a few hundred 
pounds left by my mother. Over there, I shall 
go out West. It’s a wild, rough country. It’s 


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the roughest of lives. You’ll have to cook— 

you’ll have to sew—you’ll—you’ll-” He 

stopped and glanced incredulously at her dainty 
fingers and looked up, to read her face. 

She was as in a dream, with wide eyes, look¬ 
ing far before her, and parted lips. 

41 Yes, John,” she agreed, in a strange distant 
voice. 

“ Darling, listen,” he said desperately, 
though his face lost none of its eagerness. 
“For years and years, I shall be a poor man—- 
a—a working man. And you’ll be a poor 
woman—a working woman. You’ll be tired. 
You’ll suffer, if you go with me. All you’ll 
have will be my love—and my love. But you’ll 
suffer-” He stopped to devour her expres¬ 

sion of happiness, and whispered, “Are you 
listening, dear? Do you understand?” 

“Yes, John,” she sighed. 

“Well? Well?” he asked, in a hoarse, pas¬ 
sionate whisper. 

“It—it sounds all—so beautiful,” she said, 
nodding her head slowly and looking above into 
space. 

“Beautiful, you angel! Yes, beautiful! 
But think of all that it means. Mary, do you 
realize that for years and years I shall never 


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be able to give you a dress like this?” He 
pointed to the wonderful creation that she wore. 

44 What do dresses matter?” she asked scorn¬ 
fully. 

44 They won’t matter,” he said exultantly. 
c4 They shan’t matter now until I can give them 
to you myself. And then they shall only mat¬ 
ter because it’s 1 who give them to you; and 
you will wear them just for me.” His arms 
were about her, and his low voice gathered in 
intensity and emotion. 44 I shall succeed for 
you, my darling; I promise it. One day you 
will be the wife of a great man. You shall be 
proud of me. You shan’t have a wish ungrati¬ 
fied that money can buy. And never, never, 
Mary, shall you want for anything that love 
can buy. Mary—Mary—say you believe in me. 
Tell me you believe in me—and love me.” 


CHAPTER EIGHT 


She held his head against her breast, and 
for many minutes they whispered to each other. 
She told her lover only what he already knew, 
but he made her repeat the sweet phrases again 
and again. Finally he told her that he must 
go, with a pertinent glance at the door through 
which her father, or perhaps her mother, re¬ 
turning from the ball, might enter. The girl 
was in consternation; she told him that she 
would be sent to Peebles in the morning and 
that there would be no hope of her leaving the 
watchful eye of her Aunt Sophia. And then, 
if the boat sailed on Tuesday, she would no 
more be in Scotland than John would be pre¬ 
paring to sail for America. 

“Then you must come away with me to¬ 
night,” he declared, with swift decision. “No, 
listen,” he went on, as she started to protest. 
“I’ll take you to my married sister. She knows 
all about us, and you’ll be safe with her.” 

“Very well, John,” agreed the girl in a small 
voice, but without hesitation. 

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They walked towards the window unthink¬ 
ingly, and Carlton suddenly became the man 
of action. Before anything else, he decided, 
the new dress must be changed. 

“Change it, n-n-now?” she asked. 

“ Quick, quick/ ’ he urged, unmindful of her 
modesty. 

“Y-y-ves, John/’ she obeyed, fumbling des¬ 
perately with hooks and laces. 

John watched her impatiently. 

“Here,” he said, “let me help.” 

“Oh, no,” she cried, in an agony of shyness. 

“That’s all right, dear,” he assured her 
briskly. “Look upon me as your lady’s maid. 
I’m the only one you’ll have for the Lord knows 
how long.” 

She submitted obediently and stood while he 
unfastened the bodice, one hand holding a 
burning cheek. He soon was in difficulties. 

“Confound these hooks and things,” he mut¬ 
tered. “There,” with obvious relief, “that’s 
done.” 

He helped her out of her elaborate dress, 
quite oblivious of her intense shyness. Mary’s 
face was crimson. Just as he had successfully 
lifted it over her head, after an interrupted 
effort to lower it to her feet, there came a sharp 


SECRETS 


105 


rap at the door, and Marlowe intoned, “Mary!” 

“Yes, Papa?” his daughter gasped, hut in 
words of forced evenness. 

“What have you got the candles lit for?” 

The key turned audibly in the lock, and the 
door opened a little. Mary rushed to try and 
shut the door, and John, frozen with terror 
of his late employer, prepared to dive from the 
window. But the girl kept her head, and, with 
full appreciation of Victorian customs, almost 
shouted: 

“No! I’m undressing . You can’t come in, 
Papa.” 

Both she and Carlton stood petrified, watch¬ 
ing the slit in the door. 

“Humph! Put those candles out before you 
go to bed. But you must be in bed in five 
minutes,” came the voice from the corridor. 

“Yes, Papa,” she agreed. 

“Very well.” 

He closed the door, locked it, and the relieved 
intrigants stood rigid as statues. After they 
were sure that he had gone downstairs, John 
immediately took command again. He threw 
the cast-off dress over the back of a chair, and 
ordered Mary to hurry. 

“Get the plainest dress you have and the 


106 


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thickest of boots,’’ lie told her, and she ran 
to her wardrobe. 

When Mary, with John’s eager but inefficient 
aid, had slipped off the two petticoats which 
remained over the crinoline, she brought out 
her darkest and plainest frock. He held it 
perplexedly for a moment, intent on assistance, 
until she suggested with a shy smile that it had 
to be put on over her head. It was of dull blue 
silk, trimmed with narrow bands of black vel¬ 
vet ribbon. To complete the costume in which 
she was destined to travel many miles across 
the Atlantic, and across half the continent of 
North America, she perched a flower-lined 
‘ 4 scoop” bonnet on her dark curls, and wrapped 
herself in a voluminous blue cape of woolen 
stuff, and replaced her dainty slippers with 
sterner walking boots. She hastily packed a 
small bag with linen undergarments and her 
toilette requisites; then she went to her desk, 
took out her diary, with glossy leather covers 
which were locked by heavy brass hinges, and 
placed it in her tiny muff. She was ready to go. 

“Just a minute—let me think,” broke in 
John. “Your father will go first to my lodg¬ 
ings to-morrow, and I must give the landlady 
to understand that I have gone to Scotland. 



A First National Picture. 


THE FIRST WARNING OF THE RUSTLERS’ ATTACK. 

















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107 


Now, you must leave a note to your father to 
the same effect. When he goes to interview 
her to-morrow, she’ll corroborate your state¬ 
ment. That’ll head the fellow off.” 

“But, John,” she said in dismay, “that isn’t 
true, is it?” 

“Sit down and write, ‘Dear Papa: I have 
gone to Scotland to marry John,’ ” he ordered 
sternly. 

“But that’s not true,” she reiterated ear¬ 
nestly, penning the note, nevertheless. 

“Of course it isn’t, or I wouldn’t have asked 
you to write it,” he agreed with impatience. 

“And I told him that I’d never deceive him 
again.” 

“You’ve got to,” he insisted masterfully. 

“Got to?” she questioned, turning towards 
him incredulously. “You—command me to do 
it, John?” 

“I certainly do,” he replied, folding his arms 
and attempting a frown. 

She gave a frightened, happy gasp, took up 
her quill, and looked inquiringly at him. 

“Now say,” he dictated, “ ‘I hope you will 
try and forgive me. Your obedient daughter, 
Mary. ’ ’ ’ She finished writing, and he directed, 
“Just leave it there on the desk.” 


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She placed the inkwell on the edge of the 
note and got up. 

“Now come, darling,’’ he said. He took her 
hand and led her towards the window, then 
seized her in his arms. They kissed, and he 
withdrew his lips to whisper through clenched 
teeth, “It’s not too late to draw back, Mary-” 

“Oh, John, dear,” she cried, deeply hurt. 

“No, listen,” he said again, moving slightly 
from her, but still holding her in his arms. 
“I’ve told you a little of what’s in store for 
you. But it’s not too late—you can still-” 

She put her hand over his mouth. 

“No, John. You love me. That’s all I ask,” 
she answered. 

He leaned forward, and she let fall her hand 
so that he could have her lips. They seemed 
to melt together, and her eyes, beaming, closed 
in happiness as she saw the longing in his. 
Yes, her heart told her as it throbbed, this 
was her darling, and she would live where he 
lived, and only as long as he lived. Nothing 
else mattered. Life had just begun; it must 
never end now. 

Suddenly he broke their embrace and gently 
forced her from him. He pointed speechlessly 


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109 


to the candles and she blew them ont, one by 
one. Quickly he went to the window and raised 
the blind, and the room was once more a moon¬ 
lit dusk. She came to him again, and he helped 
her over the window-sill. They crossed the 
balcony, and he raised her gently over the 
ledge until her feet were secure at the side 
of the ladder. 

“You go down first, darling/’ he whispered, 
holding her hag and muff, as she felt with one 
foot for the first available rung. “I’ll hold 
you firmly; you needn’t be afraid.” 

“I—I’m not in the 1-least afraid, John,” she 
assured him, though her teeth were chattering 
with terror. 

He went neatly over the ledge and, holding 
the bag and muff in one hand and Mary’s 
clenched fist in the other, followed her slowly 
down the ladder, bracing his shoulders awk¬ 
wardly against the two uprights. 

“I was really very frightened, John,” she 
admitted as they stood together on the flags. 
“Yet I had never before been quite so happy 
as I was when you came into my room to-night. 
You are so—so brave, John,” she told him 
softly, placing her white hands on his shoulders 


110 


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and drinking in the jubilant smile—almost a 
grin—that played on his lips. She looked up 
at the moon, which she thought was perceptibly 
sinking to the woodland sky-line, and then 
turned her head towards the house. 

“That is Papa’s den,” she said, nodding to¬ 
wards a solitary light in the center of the house. 
“Do you know, John, he had three brandy 
liqueurs to-night—and no supper at all! And 
he always eats a good supper and never takes 
more than two brandy liqueurs, even when we 
have guests. I can just imagine him up there, 
John—from what Aunt Eliza told me. He is 
walking up and down the floor and talking to 
himself. When he goes out, he will slam the 
door, and when he comes back to the den, he 
will slam it behind him again.” 

“There will be nothing like that in—in our 
house,” asserted John boastfully. “Not even 
after we have been married for twenty years. 
And our—our daughter will never-” 

Mary locked his lips with her finger. 

“You mustn’t think badly of Papa,” she told 
him. “He does not know how we love each 
other.” 

“We must go, Mary,” warned John. “Your 


SECRETS 111 

mother may be back at any time from the ball 
and go to your room.” 

“Yes, John,” agreed the girl, though she still 
lingered. She felt the tears coming and turned 
her face from the moonlight so that he could 
not see them. “I am so happy when I think 
of all that is before us, but it—it is hard to 
leave home, John. And I wonder what will 
happen to Susan. Mamma dismissed her with¬ 
out a character for bringing your notes to me. 
It is a shame; she lied so beautifully.” 

“Mary, darling,” her lover insisted anx¬ 
iously, “please come now before-” 

“And Socrates,” exclaimed Mary in sudden 
consternation. “I wonder if Duncan will be 
good to him when I have gone.” 

“Who in the—Pm sorry, dear—who is Soc¬ 
rates?” asked John impatiently. 

“Why, he’s the most gorgeous rooster in the 
yard,” she explained, “and he’ll eat corn out 
of my hand. If any one else goes near him, 
he’s positively vicious.” 

“I see.” John placed an arm around her 
waist and gently drew her down the walk. 
They carefully stepped on the grass between 
the noisy flags. “My cycle is in here,” he 



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said, leaving her to disappear in a maze of 
flowering bushes. He came back at once, push¬ 
ing the high bicycle, with its one great wheel 
and a smaller one in back to sustain its giant 
frame. “We’ll have to go on it,” he told her, 
quietly now, because they were near the road. 

“Yes, John.” She clutched at his free hand. 

He opened the gate, looked up and down the 
road cautiously, and turned his stern face to¬ 
wards her. All trace of boyishness had gone. 

“It’s not too late, Mary,” he whispered. “I 
can take you back now if you are—if you think 
that you’d—rather not—go with me.” 

She smiled gently as she turned towards the 
house, and saw its lights flicker through the rus¬ 
tling leaves of the trees. 

“I made up my mind up there, John,” she 
said, pointing to her darkened bedroom, “and 
I shall never change. I never want to come 
back—unless you are with me.” 

He brushed her cheek with his lips and 
wheeled his bicycle to the cobble-stones. 

“Jump on quickly behind me,” he ordered, 
as he mounted the high machine and steadied it 
for the moment by twisting the handle-bars. 
Almost as soon as his feet struck the pedals 
and began to push violently, she was behind 


SECRETS 113 

him on the narrow seat, her scantily crinolined 
dress flapping in the breeze. 

She gritted her teeth bravely as the wheel 
rattled noisily over the rongh pavement, and 
clnng to her lover with arms that were so tense 
that they conld not tremble. 















CHAPTER NINE 


Against a majestic range of snow-covered 
mountains, bluish-mauve in the distance, a 
primitive wooden shack was etched in bold re¬ 
lief. A thin spiral of silver smoke, curling 
from the chimney, proclaimed that it was a 
home, a refuge in this particularly wild and 
unsettled part of the West. Wyoming, then, 
was being sparsely populated by a scattering 
of men who had turned from the excitement of 
the Civil War to the only remaining excitement 
of peace—that which came with prospecting 
in a strange territory, where one must be an 
adventurer to survive. And those who had 
come from other countries to the United States, 
like John Carlton, naturally went along the 
recently broken trails, and, following the exam¬ 
ple of the wiser minds, started to raise cattle. 

Ice-coated timber fences, hastily improvised, 
but adequately secure, enclosed the cabin within 
a radius of five hundred yards; they were 
broken only by two great swinging gates, which 
opened wide enough to give access to horse- 
115 


116 


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men, three abreast. Beyond the limits of this 
stockade, the vast fields of snow were trampled 
everywhere by the hurrying feet of cattle, and 
the more emphatic hoof-prints of horses. 

The small dwelling was obviously sturdy, 
though it must have been built by hands in¬ 
experienced even in elementary construction, 
apparently assisted in the more technical de¬ 
tails by other and more experienced hands. A 
low roof of rough shingles, over which the snow 
now lay protectingly, covered the dwelling. In 
the rear, there was a diversion from the rec¬ 
tangular shape that was apparent from the 
front; this was the second room which had been 
added to the main structure, the bedroom of the 
unimposing quarters. 

It was late in a winter afternoon of 1870. 
Before the open fireplace, where flames flickered 
and danced, sat Mary Carlton, her tiny baby 
in her arms. 

The warm radiance of the big logs, which 
crackled under the steaming iron cauldron, vied 
successfully with the feeble light filtering 
through the unshuttered windows in illuminat¬ 
ing the room, which in that uncertain dimness 
seemed large. 

The crude furniture, a table, some chairs and 


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117 


a dresser, hand-hewn from native logs, were 
John’s first handiwork on reaching Wyoming. 
Warm bear-skin rugs on the roughly finished 
wood floor, the glint of copper utensils, blue 
and white dishes on the shelves of the dresser, 
and gay little figured red calico curtains at the 
windows relieved the bareness of this rude 
interior. They all showed the loving touch of 
a woman who could invest any surroundings, 
no matter how crude or humble, with a home¬ 
like atmosphere. 

This was the home of Mary and John Carl¬ 
ton—their home after a long journey across the 
Atlantic and more than half the continent of 
North America, a long journey of hardships 
and uncertainty. Here John Carlton had 
brought his bride, and together they had worked 
and suffered. There had been overwhelming 
discouragements and strangely bewildering ex¬ 
periences, while they built their cabin, and made 
their start in the new cattle country. Here 
their son had been born, the youngster who was 
such a source of joy to Mary and the delight of 
John. 

As the pale afternoon sunlight died, Mary 
stood up and looked out of the small-paned 
window into the growing dusk. It was hard to 


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reconcile tlie sight of this cabin and the efficient 
yonng woman in her strictly utilitarian dark 
woolen dress, without either style or fit, the 
woman whose hair was simply parted and 
knotted at the nape of her neck, with the glori¬ 
ous vision of Mary Marlowe, who two years 
before had stood in front of the mirror in the 
security of her room at Blackheath, radiant in 
costly silks and laces. 

Yet she was as beautiful as ever, and her 
face had the new charm of love and mother¬ 
hood, together with that apparent spirit of 
conquering power which England’s pioneer 
women have ever carried to the ends of the 
earth. 

The transition which she had anticipated with 
shining eyes as she stood before her lover in 
her bedroom had at first been the wonderful 
dream that she expected. Not until the sailing 
vessel had passed Queenstown did she for a 
moment question the wisdom of her step. Then 
she became deathly ill, and she forgot the zeal 
with which she had pleaded with the Liverpool 
Registrar to overlook the technical banns and 
make her Mrs. John Carlton. John had wanted 
to be married in England; but, as he had so ve¬ 
hemently announced, he would sail that after- 


119 


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noon with, the young woman, and would place 
her in the care of the stewardess until they 
reached New York, if Registrar Kilrain did not 
see fit to make Mary Marlowe his wife. The 
Registrar, under the extraordinary circum¬ 
stances, obtained some sort of official sanction 
and Mary was John’s wife before she left Eng¬ 
land. 

There were days and days in the tiny room 
with its two hunks, hut Mary, after her sea¬ 
sickness had gone, joined her husband, who 
seemed immune, and walked the narrow deck 
with him. At night, they sat silently together, 
and watched the billows of the Atlantic pile 
themselves uselessly against the prow of the 
heaving vessel. 

Castle Garden—New York! They stayed for 
several days in the great city, which had build¬ 
ings so high and vast that one could hardly ap¬ 
preciate them. Some of them had five stories, 
and it was said that a seven-story building was 
planned. 

John found a friend on Oliver Street who 
had come to the United States a year before. 
The West, he told Carlton, had the best oppor¬ 
tunities, and the men who had just fought in 
the Civil War were pushing westward, towards 


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the Pacific Coast, where San Francisco was a 
thriving city. But there was no better oppor¬ 
tunity, he urged wisely, than in the intermedi¬ 
ate and undeveloped territory. In fact, the far¬ 
ther one went beyond the Mississippi River, the 
better the chances of quick and sure gain. 
Cattle was becoming the leading money-maker 
of the West, and was supplanting gold; for 
cattle raising was certain to bring profit, while 
the mines and gold-hearing streams were a mat¬ 
ter of speculation—something to he avoided by 
a man with a wife to support. 

They started for Wyoming by train, and then 
continued the trip by stage-coach until finally 
John decided that they should stop and make 
their fortune. There was no trouble about ob¬ 
taining land; it could be had almost for the 
asking. John found that the men of the county 
were willing to help him erect his cabin; and 
he invested what was left from his mother’s 
legacy in cattle. He soon had acre upon acre, 
and after the first round-up, he knew that it 
was only a question of time before he would 
be able to give Mary everything that she could 
desire. There were cattle rustlers, to be sure, 
who stole the cattle, after changing the brands, 
but they had already been marked and their 


SECRETS 


121 


depredations would not be of long duration. At 
any rate, they were not able to make serious 
inroads on the constantly increasing stock, 
though they were a continuous source of annoy¬ 
ance. 

John Carlton found himself firmly estab¬ 
lished in Wyoming. 

Mary, after looking anxiously out of the win¬ 
dow, returned to the low chair by the fire, and, 
rocking her blanket-wrapped baby in her arms, 
sang quietly: 

“ Jesus, tender shepherd, hear me, 

Bless my little lamb to-night. 

Through the darkness, be Thou near me; 

Keep me safe till morning light. 

May my sins be all forgiven-” 

She stopped her prayerful song and looked 
down on the white face of her child. 

“My little lamb,’’ she whispered; “you have 
no sins.” 

Suddenly she heard the muffled sound of 
horses’ hoofs in the snow. She placed the baby 
in the cradle, covered him quickly, and ran to 
the window. Two horsemen galloped up from 
the west gate and rapidly approached the house. 


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“Hi, Bob !” she heard her husband shout and 
then louder, as he came nearer the shack, “Oh, 
Bob!” 

“John,” she cried excitedly. She went to 
open the door. 

“Look after the horses, Bob,” John Carlton 
ordered. ‘ ‘ The doctor ’ll be riding off in about 
half an hour or so.” 

There was a murmured reply, and two men 
came stamping up to the door, which Mary held 
open. 

“Oh, Doctor, thank God you’ve come,” she 
greeted the man who came up ahead, carrying 
his saddle-bags. “Thank God!” 

“Sheer good luck, my dear Mrs. Carlton,” 
he replied. He was a bluff, homely man, with 
an assuring smile that lit up his entire counte¬ 
nance. Above his high cowhide boots were 
fringes of heavy woolen stockings. He went to 
the fire, stood before it for a moment, took 
off his gloves, hat and coat, and put them on 
the stool. His saddle-bags he threw at the side 
of the cradle. Then he walked to the fire again 
and clapped his hands briskly. 

John Carlton entered a moment later. He 
seemed much more mature, though not much 
older, than on the evening when he and his 


SECRETS 


123 


wife had eloped from her father’s house. His 
face was bronzed; the formerly prized “whis¬ 
kers’ ’ had disappeared, and the strong frame 
which almost burst from his rough clothing told 
of hardships, work—and health. 

“If the snowdrift on the high-trail hadn’t 
forced the doctor out of his way,” he said jubi¬ 
lantly, “I doubt whether I could have run him 
down within five hours.” 

He put his arms around Mary, and, after 
kissing her fervently, asked, “How is he?” 

“I—I don’t know,” she faltered; “he seems 
so weak—and so helpless.” 

“I’ll soon tell you, Mrs. Carlton,” the doctor 
put in cheerily. He knelt down beside the cra¬ 
dle, placed his long blunt fingers tenderly on 
the baby’s forehead, and with his other hand 
reached beneath the covers for the baby’s tiny 
wrist. There was no expression on his face 
except that of assuring complacency. 

John Carlton and his wife stood in silent 
suspense for more than a minute; then John 
broke in, with an anguished voice: 

“What do you think, Doctor?” 



CHAPTER TEN 


The physician, one of those brave souls who, 
like many others, had followed the westward 
American pioneers with no thought of gain 
and no hope of the normal rewards of his call¬ 
ing, lifted his face from his patient and smiled 
at the mother. He was experienced in medi¬ 
cine, but the lure of the great West had gripped 
him, as it had gripped men of every profession. 
But, unlike most of them, he devoted himself 
solely to the life work which he had originally 
chosen. And he understood the men and women 
of the New West. 

He looked at his watch and released the 
baby’s wrist. 

“Now, just wait a minute, folks,” he ordered, 
taking from somewhere a clinical themometer, 
one of his prized possessions and a heritage of 
his medical duty in the recent war. “You just 
go and fix me up with a hot drink, if you will, 
Mrs. Carlton, and don’t you go on imagining 
all kinds of horrors. And don’t bother my pa¬ 
tient and me,” he ordered, good-humoredly. 

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12 6 

‘ ‘Oh, Pm so sorry, I-” she began, but 

her husband took her arm and motioned sig¬ 
nificantly towards the boiling pot. 

She went to the bottom of the dresser and 
took out a whisky bottle, pouring some of its 
contents into a glass. Then she put a spoon 
in the glass, and, scooping out some water from 
the boiling pot over the fire, filled the glass 
with the hot water. 

“Won’t you have a bit of grub, Doctor!” 
John asked, as Mary whisked a few bits of 
seasoning into the toddy. 

“No, no, thanks,” he said. “Haven’t got 
time. All I’ll need is the drink.” 

He soon produced the thermometer and read 
it carefully, his expression never changing. 

“Don’t worry,” was his admonition. “He’ll 
come through all right if I’m any judge.” 

He took the glass that Mary brought him 
and drank its contents as quickly as their tem¬ 
perature permitted. Then he took his doctor’s 
bag into his lap, selected two or three vials, 
and gave Mrs. Carlton certain suggestions and 
orders as he handed her papers of medicine. 

“He’s always been so bright,” volunteered 
Carlton, “and he looks for me, you know. 
Whenever I come in, that youngster hears me 


SECRETS 127 

and when I take him up, he chirps and holds 
onto me. The strength he’s got in his little fists 
—you wouldn’t believe it at that age, Doc.” 

“Oh, yes, I would,” smiled McGovern. “I 
believe everything a father tells me about his 
baby.” 

“But since yesterday, he hasn’t noticed 
me,” objected Carlton, very perturbed. 

“Because he wanted me—his mother,” put 
in Mary. 

Dr. McGovern repeated his instructions, 
packed his saddle bags, and put on his outer 
clothes. As he went towards the door, he mo¬ 
tioned to John to follow him. 

“Good day, Mrs. Carlton,” he said, “and if 
anything goes wrong, I’ll be here in no time at 
all.” That was despite the fact that his home 
was in the small settlement more than twenty 
miles away. 

Carlton smiled reassuringly at his wife, and 
walked outside with McGovern. He whistled 
to his man, and before long the doctor’s horse 
was brought up by Bill, who, with Bob, helped 
Carlton around the place. 

“Don’t be too worried about the boy,” he’ 
said meanwhile to Carlton. “It was a bad dose 
of colic and he’s pretty weak, but the chances 


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are that he '11 pull through all right. Keep him 
warm, and Mrs. Carlton knows the rest of it. 
I'm going over to Westley's ranch now, and 
ought to be home by morning. If the hoy isn't 
better, send one of your men to town, and I'll 
come right down." 

He took the reins of his horse, and waited 
until Carlton's hired man was beyond hearing 
distance. 

“There’s something else," he said signifi¬ 
cantly, ‘‘ that I wanted to talk to you about.'' 

‘‘What is it!" inquired John. 

“Charley Peters was found dead at the bot¬ 
tom of Thornsett's Creek this morning." 

“Not dead! Charley!" 

“Shot through the heart," pursued the doc¬ 
tor. 

“So that infernal gang's on the war-path 
again!" asked Carlton rather disgustedly. 

‘ ‘ Sure,'' agreed McGovern earnestly. ‘ ‘ They 
are hitting back, and that was their first punch. 
But not their last, I tell you. I warn you that 
they'd do their damnedest to get even with you 
for the lynching of Red Jake." 

John grinned, and lit his pipe. 

“You're next; I know it," said the doctor. 

“You think so!" asked Carlton composedly. 


SECRETS 


129 


“Why, man,” insisted McGovern, “every 
one knows that it was a scheme of yours that 
trapped Red Jake, and that it was your doing 
that he was lynched. You couldn’t wait to let 
the law take its course.” 

“The law,” snorted Carlton with contempt. 
“There’s only one law with cattle-thieves, and 
that’s lynch law. What’s the sense of bring¬ 
ing a man like Red Jake before a judge? A 
judge who’s quaking in his shoes over a few 
threatening letters, and a jury packed with 
the fellow’s pals!” 

“I’m not concerned with the administration 
of the law,” declared the doctor quietly. “Just 
now, Carlton, I’m concerned with you and that 
little wife of yours, and your boy.” 

“Sorry, Doc,” smiled Carlton, patting Mc¬ 
Govern’s arm. “I didn’t mean it that way—* 
you know that. You’re a good chap.” 

“Well—and so are you,” insisted McGov¬ 
ern. “And it’s because you are a good chap—* 
and a great deal more—that we don’t want to 
lose you just yet. You’re a bit of a wonder, 
you know, John. Two years in Wyoming—■ 
isn’t that it? And fresh from the old country 
at that—and you’ve made your mark already. 
You’ll go far if you don’t go too quick. Say,” 


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lie questioned suddenly, “how much does your 
wife know of this business ?” 

“Nothing—and she never will, I hope.” 

“That’s where you’re wrong,” calmly said 
McGovern. “And I dare say you’ll tell me 
that interfering with man and wife isn’t a doc¬ 
tor’s business. Let me tell you that you’re a 
long way from understanding that little wife 
of yours.” 

“What do you mean?” asked John, really 
angry. 

“You treat her like a baby,” announced Mc¬ 
Govern bluntly. “She’s no baby. She’s a 
woman in a thousand, and I’d sooner have that 
woman of yours as a fighting partner in a 
tight corner than—the champion heavy-weight 
of the—the Universe.” 

“By Jove,” admitted Carlton, mollified, “I 
guess she is rather a bit of a wonder.” 

“Tell her the whole story,” urged the doc¬ 
tor. “Tell her everything. Never keep any¬ 
thing from her. But look here, man; I’m a 
fine doctor. Get back inside. You’ll be a pa¬ 
tient of mine, too, if you stay out much longer 
without a top-coat. But look out, John, and 
be careful.” 

He mounted his horse and galloped over the 


SECRETS 


131 


lonely trail which, after ten miles, if snow did 
not hinder him, would lead him to Westley’s 
ranch, where Westley himself, he had heard 
only a few hours before, was badly laid up. 

Carlton went into the house, and found Mary 
sitting before the cradle, waiting hopefully for 
a baby cry, or a motion of a tiny hand that was 
other than a spasmodic twitch. 

He slammed the door and went over to the 
‘‘ couch/ ’ a crude bench, banked with calico- 
covered pillows. His face was very thoughtful 
as he sat down and placed his chin in one hand. 
Mary looked towards him, arose quietly from 
her chair, and went to her husband. 

4 6 John,” she asked, “why don’t you tell 
me?” 

“Tell you what?” he inquired, raising his 
head. 

“What’s on your mind,” she answered. 

“It’s not woman’s work,” he responded. 

“All work is woman’s work—when her man’s 
in it,” she pronounced decisively. 

He thought for a time, and then lifted one 
hand for her to take. 

‘ ‘ Come here, Mary, ’ ’ he asked. She sat down 
beside him. “Mary, I swore that I’d succeed 
for you. When I took from you all your soft- 


132 


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ness and richness, I swore to myself that some 
day I wonld give yon anything that a woman 
could want.” 

“I have it,” she said smilingly. “I have 
your love, and it was only a week ago that you 
told me that we had a thousand acres of land, 
three thousand head of cattle, and that you 
yourself had a wife that you loved, and a won¬ 
derful baby boy. What else could we ask for! 
I have never wanted more than your love—and 
Baby.” 

“You haven’t a thousandth part of what I’ll 
give you,” John replied fervently. “We’re 
only at the beginning. But you and I, Mary, 
are making fine strides, fine progress. We 
claimed, by good luck, a wonderful bit of land. 
You helped me save the money I put into it. 
We’ve won what we worked for—we’re winning 
by inches. But—you’ll need patience and cour- 
age—you’ll need courage.” 

“Patience and courage—yes, John,” she an¬ 
swered. 

Carlton paused and, after bracing himself 
for an ordeal, went on, ‘‘ Mary—you—you know, 
dear, so much of a man’s life is a brutal 
affair.” 

“Is it, John?” she asked quietly. 


133 


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“Yes”—lie found it hard to pick his words— 
“and women should be kept out of it. But 
sometimes that’s impossible. You know, dear, 
—I mean, you don’t know, dear—that I’ve made 
enemies as well as friends.” 

“That’s only natural. I think I under¬ 
stand.” 

She smiled encouragingly at him. 

“But you don’t,” he said desperately, “and 
that’s the damnable part of it. How could you 
understand?” he continued with infinite ten¬ 
derness, stroking her hands. He was appalled 
as he saw that the palms were calloused. 
“Mary,” he went on, “it’s hideous to have to 
tell you. You’ll he shocked and horrified. 
You may even loathe me when you know that 
I-” 

He stopped abruptly and clenched his fists. 
Mary looked at him inquiringly, and a trace of 
a smile was on her lips. 

“John,” she asked naively, “are you trying 
to tell me about the lynching of Red Jake and 
his two sons?” 

“Good God!” he cried, turning to face her. 
“ What do you know about that ? ’ ’ 

“"Why, I know everything,” she replied, per¬ 
plexed at his attitude. 


134 


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“ Everything ?” he said, dumbfounded. 

4 ‘Yes, John,” she agreed with an encourag¬ 
ing smile. 

“Who told you?” 

“Why—Bob told me.” 

“He had my orders,” said Carlton slowly 
and heatedly, “not to breathe a word of the’ 
brutal story to you.” 

“Yes, I know,” she assented. “But that was 
after he had told me everything. You mustn’t 
be angry with poor Bob. He was dreadfully 
upset when he knew he’d done the wrong thing, 
and begged me to say nothing. It doesn’t mat¬ 
ter, my telling you now, does it, John?” 

Carlton rose and walked away from the 
couch. 

“Let’s have the fellow’s yarn,” he urged 
finally. “What did he tell you?” 

Mary looked at him tremulously and began 
to speak, in utter apology for the man who had 
told her what her husband had done. 

“Oh, John!” she said. “You know what a 
silent man he is. But when he heard what you. 
had done, he was so proud of his master that 
he simply poured out the whole story to me. 
Poor Bob, he naturally thought that his mas¬ 
ter’s wife would be proud as well.” 


135 


SECRETS 

“Proud?” sneered Carlton bitterly. 

Mary was too absorbed and excited to notice 
the tone of bis voice. Her eyes and her ges¬ 
tures were those of one who was reciting an 
epic. 

“He told me all about those cattle-thieves, 
and how you had wormed your way into their 
confidence. How, all alone,’’ she pursued 
breathlessly, “you’d gone to Red Jake’s shack 
in the mountains, with your life in your hands, 
and tricked him into taking you on as one of 
his accomplices. That big plan you laid before 
them of rounding up a whole herd of cattle—- 
Bob told me all about it. Red Jake, whom no¬ 
body had ever got the better of—you deceived 
him and tricked him, and caught him red- 
handed. Bob said that it was the most wonder¬ 
ful thing that ever happened. He said that if 
somebody hadn’t blundered, the whole gang 
would have been captured. And afterwards, 
the others wanted to hand Red Jake over to the 
Sheriff, but Bob said you wouldn’t have it. 
You insisted on hanging them at once. And 
Red Jake and his two sons were hanged then 
and there. And it was all your doing. Oh, 
John, how dreadful it must have been for you. 
But, oh, I’m so proud of my husband.” 


136 


SECRETS 


She beamed at him devotedly, her eyes jour¬ 
neying from his head to his feet with the ut¬ 
most of admiration. He stared at her without 
comprehending. He had caused the death of 
three men, and this slip of a wife, who knew 
little of the rough life that went on beyond the 
confines of the rectangular wooden fence, be¬ 
lieved him a hero. 

“Proud of me!” he ejaculated. “Well, if 
that doesn’t beat all Creation. Proud of me? 
Good Lord!” 

“But, John,” she said simply, “don’t you un¬ 
derstand ? Any woman would be proud to have 
a man as strong and brave and—ruthless as 
you are.” 

“I didn’t realize,” he said, scratching his 
head, and still uncomprehending. 

“Of course she would,” Mary asserted. 
“But, John dear,” she added, “there’s one 
thing that grieved me dreadfully.” 

“Grieved you, sweetheart?” asked Carlton, 
again astonished. 

“Every time you left me,” she accused 
slowly, “to go to Red Jake’s shack, you told 
me—a —story. An untruth. ’ ’ 

“But, good Heavens, darling,” he protested, 
more mystified than ever, “I couldn’t possibly 


SECRETS 137 

have told you what I was really up to. I had 
to concoct some kind of a yarn.” 

“John, dear,” she said very gravely, “I 
don’t think there can be any excuse for telling 
a lie.” And as John, who could not help smil¬ 
ing, placed his hand over his mouth, she said 
severely, “John, this is no laughing matter.” 
He straightened his face with an effort, and she 
demanded, “Promise me that in the future 
you’ll always—always tell me the truth.” 

“I promise,” he said, more soberly. 

“Thank you, dear.” 

She kissed him rather maternally on the 
forehead, patted his cheek, and went to the 
cradle. 

“Of course,” John admitted, “I ought to 
have known without McGovern pointing it out 
that you’re the finest fighting partner a man 
could wish for in a tight corner.” 

“A tight corner?” she asked, puzzled. 










CHAPTER ELEVEN 


Before he could explain, the door was 
slammed open and Bob, the cowboy, though in 
dress a nondescript sort of person, rushed into 
the cabin without knocking. 

“ Quick, Boss, they’re riding up,” he warned; 
“and it’s you they’re after.” 

“John, John, they’re after you—you! 
You’re in danger—they want to kill you—oh, 
I couldn’t bear it,” cried Mary, quickly sens¬ 
ing the situation. “John—John—I couldn’t 
bear it,” she repeated, sobbing wildly. 

Carlton patted her shoulder and ordered 
Bob, “Tell Bill to go to the west gate and then 
come back here with me. It may be only a 
false alarm.” 

Bill, who had been waiting outside, ran to 
the gate as he was ordered, and reached it as a 
dozen horsemen galloped up furiously. Some 
of them were armed with rifles; all, it was nat¬ 
urally to be presumed, had pistols and loaded 
cartridge belts under their outer clothing. 

The leader, a square-faced man whose twisted 

139 


140 


SECRETS 


features became even more repulsive as be 
spoke, shouted, “We want John Carlton,” in 
response to Bill’s challenge. His companions 
had grim, scowling faces. They were desper¬ 
ate, determined men, at least when led by the 
powerful brute who was at their head. 

“I’ll see if he wants you to come in,” re¬ 
plied Bill, realizing that Red Jake’s band meant 
business, but bravely trying to gain time. 

“Like hell,” snorted the leader, drawing his 
revolver. “We’ll go in ourselves and find out 
whether he wants to see us. And here’s some¬ 
thing for you.” He fired several shots. Bill, 
panic-stricken, tried to run towards the house. 
Before he had gone ten yards, he crumpled and 
fell headlong in the snow. One of the men dis¬ 
mounted, threw open the gate, and the spurred 
horses dashed towards the cabin. 

Meanwhile, both men in the shack had been 
busy. They had rammed against the windows 
the solid wooden shutters, braced by bars which 
fitted tightly into the stout cleats at either side, 
and had drawn their revolvers and inspected 
approvingly their available cartridges. 

“Baby,” cried Mary suddenly. She went to 
the cradle and picked up her son. “Put out the 
lights,” she suggested. The two men turned 


SECRETS 


141 


down the oil lamps in a moment, and they flick¬ 
ered and went out. Only the smoldering logs 
in the fire-place illuminated the room. 

Next Carlton swept to the floor the contents 
of the table; the two men tilted it against the 
door and strengthened it by moving the heavy 
oak chest and placing it between the legs of the 
table. 

“Where did you spot ’em?” asked Carlton. 

“They were workin’ around the outhouses, 
I guess,” the man replied, “hopin’ to fix 
me. But I’d gone ’round, as the missus 
asked me, to clear the snow from the bed¬ 
room winder.” 

“How many were there?” 

“Couldn’t say for sure. Looked like a dozen 
at least.” 

Carlton opened the wooden slide beside the 
door and peered out. “They’re coming,” he 
announced; “I can see them.” 

“Bob, you didn’t have time to clear the snow 
away from the bedroom window?” inquired 
Mary quietly. 

“No, ma’am,’’ said Bob. “Sorry.’’ 

“Then I’ll take the baby in there and put 
him in our bed,” Mary told her husband. 
“That will be the safest.” 


142 


SECRETS 


“ You ’ll stay in the bedroom, dear,” he or¬ 
dered. 

“Yes, John, and please give me a gun.” 

Her husband handed her one of the several 
revolvers which he now had beside him and 
said, “It’s fully loaded.” 

“If I hear them trying to clear away the 
snow, shall I shoot?” she asked. 

“Yes, but they won’t. Too risky, darling. 
Courage,” he urged, placing his arm around 
her and looking tenderly at the sleeping child. 
The revolver dangled from one of her fingers. 

“Yes, John,” she said, “and don’t worry 
about me, dear. I’m not the least bit fright¬ 
ened. ’ ’ 

She went like a flash to the bedroom, leaving 
the door slightly ajar. 

“Spot anything?” asked Carlton. 

“No,” said Bob, looking out from the large 
crack in a shutter. 

“Lucky you didn’t clear that snow,” his em¬ 
ployer asserted. 

There came the sound of horses and soon a 
terrific banging on the door. Neither man 
spoke, though both were tensely ready, revolv¬ 
ers pointed towards the door. 


SECRETS 


143 


“John Carlton,” came a gruff voice. 

“Well?” answered John. 

“You’re wanted, so come out,” the voice 
commanded. 

“Come on in,” invited Carlton. 

“You come out quiet, and we’ll leave the rest 
alone. If we’ve got to come in and fetch yer, 
we don’t leave no witnesses. Get me? Two 
minutes we give you to come out. Get that?” 

“I hear you,” said John, less challengingly. 

The two men in the cabin looked at each other 
and John’s glance turned to the bedroom door. 
He clutched at his revolver and his face became 
stern. He pondered the matter like a flash. If 
he went out and gave himself up, the others 
would be safe. The cattle rustlers would not 
casually kill a woman and baby, for such a 
murder would arouse the whole county. -They 
were drunk now and wanted him only; they 
had no interest in any one else. Should he re¬ 
fuse to go out, however, he decided, the enraged 
men would stop at nothing. That meant that 
Mary would be killed—at best! And Baby. 
And Bob, of course. 

Carlton heard the warning, “One minute 


more . 


144 


SECRETS 


“I’ve got to go out,” lie told Bob. “You’ll 
look after the wife and take her and the boy 
to McGovern, won’t you!” 

“Sure, Boss,” agreed the cowboy, shaking 
his head in despair. 

Mary suddenly appeared from the other 
room, revolver in hand, and went swiftly to 
her husband. 

“John, you’ll fight,” she demanded. 

“You heard what they said!” asked Carlton. 

“Yes.” 

1 6 They mean it, ’ ’ he warned. ‘ ‘ They’d shoot 
you—they’d have to. And possibly before 
that-” 

“I know,” she replied. 

“And the child—they’ll-” 

“John, if you go out, I go too,” Mary as¬ 
serted defiantly. “I—I couldn’t live,” she 
gasped, “if you gave yourself up to save us— 
I’d sooner die—I’d sooner Baby died.” 

“You will do what I say,” said John grimly. 

Mary was shaking from head to foot, but she 
raised her face stubbornly and said, “I—I ex¬ 
pect you to fight for me. I expect my man to 
fight for me.” 

John gave a despairing laugh and turned to 
his cowboy. 


SECRETS 


145 


“Bob, what would you do with a wife like 
that?” he asked. 

There came a crash at the door. 

“Time’s up, John Carlton. Come out,” or¬ 
dered the voice. 

“Come and get us if you damned well can,” 
invited the young woman, in a tremulous but 
defiant voice, opening the shutter to challenge 
them and then slamming it quickly. 

She sent a shot through the door. 

“Now you’ve done it,” said Carlton. 

“Yes, John,” she agreed, terrified, but 
smiling. 

Bob aimed from the lookout shutter at the 
door and fired twice. The men outside were 
dragging up a log with which to break down 
the door. 

“First blood,” he exulted. 

“Got him?” inquired John, taking his place 
by the front window. 

“Yep,” said Bob, peering through the tiny 
slit and trying to pick out a moving figure in 
the darkness. He shot again, and murmured, 
“Hell! Missed that one.” 

“Better luck next time, Bob,” encouraged 
Mary, whose will power alone enabled her to 
master her fear. 


146 


SECRETS 


There came the crashing blow of the batter¬ 
ing ram against the door. The angle was such 
that neither Carlton nor Bob could shoot 
effectively without exposing themselves. The 
two men stood there in desperation, their re¬ 
volvers leveled at the door, the bar of which 
was already weakening. Mary looked on in 
horror and as she turned away, her glance fell 
on the cauldron over the fire. Like a flash she 
picked up a pan, filled it with the steaming 
water, and ran to the lookout. She threw it 
open, thrust out her arm, and dashed the con¬ 
tents of the kettle sideways over the besiegers 
of the door. There came yells and curses 
from outside as she quickly banged the look¬ 
out shut. 

“Oh,” she gasped, rather sympathetic when 
she realized that she had hurt some one. John 
laughed exultantly, and Mary remarked, this 
time with timid satisfaction, “The water was 
—quite boiling, dear.” 

The men apparently had left the door, for 
shots began to riddle the barred openings of 
the cabin. 

“Baby!” cried Mary suddenly, “I must go 
to him . 9 9 

“He’s all right,” said Carlton, who was care- 



A First National Picture . > Secrets . 

MARY HEARS OF HER HUSBAND’S DISLOYALTY FROM HER PARENTS. 


































- 



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'1 






























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- Sk 

* 



















SECRETS 147 

fully and consistently tiring from liis post at 
the window. ‘ 4 Stay where yon are.” 

Mary determinedly went to the bedroom and 
rnshed to the blankets which covered her baby. 
She leaned over and brought the boy to her 
arms. His face was so white, she thought, 
whiter than ever before. She sat down and 
gazed at it sadly. The poor little baby was so 
sick. But she remembered that the eye-lids 
had not twitched as they had earlier in the 
evening, and that the feverish forehead had 
become almost cold. Her eyes widened in 
horror; she asked only for the flush of a cheek, 
the moving of a finger. Dazedly she stood up 
and went to the dresser for her hand-mirror. 
As if to test its efficacy, she breathed on it and 
it became so clouded that her face was only a 
distant image. She rubbed the moisture off on 
her sleeve and, her lips quivering, and her 
eyes still wide-opened, she placed the mirror 
before the baby’s face. Hopefully, she left it 
there for several seconds. When she looked 
at it, the glass was as dry and translucent as 
it had been before. She dropped the mirror on 
the floor and lifted the baby to the level of her 
face. The infinite peace had come, she realized; 
she had lost her baby boy. 


148 


SECRETS 

She sat down, snuggling the form against 
her breast, and rocking to and fro as she had 
done so many times in the past six months. 
Sometimes, though the tears rolled down her 
cheeks and dampened the little blanket, she 
smiled, and, looking down, crooned a lullaby. 
Her baby was in her arms, still warm, still 
snuggled in his blankets. Perhaps in a mo¬ 
ment he would open his eyes and smile as he 
had smiled until yesterday. Perhaps, if she 
prayed some more, his breath would come again 
and his cheeks would have the rosy flush that 
she loved to see. Perhaps—but no! He was 
no longer the baby who would grow to be a big 
boy and run outside with Papa and with Bob 
and Bill. 

Baby had gone, but Mary sat there, her body 
swaying mechanically. She would never let 
any one take from her that fragile form. She 
would sit forever and pray or sing, in the hope 
that he would sometime open his little eyes. 
There was nothing else for her to do—ever. 

Bob had been hit twice. One bullet disabled 
his right hand and he picked up his revolver 
and painfully filled and refilled it, shooting now 
with his left. Another shot splintered the wood 
before him and a flow of blood gushed from his 


149 


SECRETS 

head. He tried vainly to get up, and Carlton, 
in desperation, left his post, from which he had 
fired cartridge after cartridge, and helped him 
to his feet. 

“All right, Boss,” Bob assured him, blink¬ 
ing his eyes, and cheerfully propping himself 
against a chair so that he could continue to 
shoot. 

“I don’t think I can stand it,” John said 
hoarsely. “I can’t risk that angel in there be¬ 
ing butchered. I’m going to give myself up.” 

“No, you don’t,” said Bob vehemently. 

“What the hell do you mean?” asked Carlton. 

“I’ve shot a couple of their men, and if they 
come in here they’ll lynch us all, just as you 
lynched Red Jake and-” 

There came a volley of shots and a plate on 
the dresser crashed to the floor in pieces. A 
canister dropped off the mantelpiece a moment 
later. 

“We can’t get ’em with these here revolv¬ 
ers,” decreed Bob. “Some of ’em are over on 
the ridge with rifles.” 

Another volley came and a shutter at the side 
window crashed at the same time. The two 
men frantically pumped bullets into the dark¬ 
ness. Through the opening cautiously crawled 


150 


SECRETS 


a man. Carlton, standing at his window and 
intent on the ground before him, did not ob¬ 
serve him. 

The crash of the shutter brought Mary Carl¬ 
ton from her mournful reverie. She placed the 
body of the baby on the bed, rubbed her fore¬ 
head in an effort to recall the present circum¬ 
stances, and brushed away the tears from her 
moistened eyes. On seeing the revolver on the 
dresser she picked it up involuntarily and 
looked at it. Then she remembered. John was 
fighting for her and she must help him. She 
walked dazedly towards the door, looked 
through the slight opening. She saw at the 
extreme end of the room a man, bearded, un¬ 
couth, with wicked determination in his eyes. 
He was watching John. Slowly he raised the 
rifle which he carried and leveled it at Carlton. 

Mary seized the door and opened it. She 
raised her revolver, took careful aim and fired. 
The rifle clattered to the floor and the strange 
man fell in a heap. Carlton and Bob looked 
around in amazement, and first saw the prone 
body of the intruder. Then John looked to¬ 
wards the bedroom and saw his wife, the re¬ 
volver wavering in her hand. She dropped the 
weapon and stood there, supporting herself 


SECRETS 151 

weakly against the wall. Carlton rushed to her 
and took her in his arms. 

“Why, Mary,” he said, “yon must have- 
why—you saved my life.” 

“Yes, John,” she said, smiling faintly. “I’m 
so glad I could help.” 

“Hooray!” cried Bob without warning. 
i ‘ Here come the boys. Hooray! ’ ’ 

“What do you mean?” asked Carlton, in¬ 
credulous. 

“I can see ’em. Can’t you hear the horses? 
And how them murderers are skedaddling. ’ ’ 

“Mary, do you hear? We are saved!” 
Carlton asked the limp form in his arms. 

“Yes, John,” she said; “now I’ll go back 
to Baby.” 

She went to the bedroom again and Carl¬ 
ton excitedly opened the front door and looked 
out. Ten men with rifles were before the house. 
Five horses, riderless, stood patiently in the 
snow, proof of the accurate aim of Bob and 
John Carlton and his wife. The remainder of 
Red Jake’s gang had dashed away as they 
heard the approach of the rescue party. 

“All right, John?” asked some one whose 
voice Carlton could not distinguish in the dark¬ 


ness. 


152 


SECRETS 


4 ‘Bob’s a little smashed up and Bill must 
have been knocked out at the gate. Otherwise 
we’re in good shape. Come on in, boys.” 

“Can’t. McGovern rounded us up to get 
this crowd and we’re going to finish ’em up. 
Good night, John.” 

He wheeled his horse around, dug in the 
spurs and disappeared towards the west gate, 
followed by his companions. 

“I’d go if the baby wasn’t sick,” said John, 
rather regretfully. 

“Lord, Boss, haven’t you had enough fight¬ 
ing for one day? What a man,” he added in 
despair. 

Carlton made an attempt to place the fur¬ 
niture in order and then went to the bedroom. 
He found Mary sitting there, rocking her baby 
in the straight chair and singing softly a lul¬ 
laby. Her eyes were dull, and now and then a 
tear rolled aimlessly down her face. She did 
not see him, though he was straight before her. 

“What’s the trouble, Mary?” he asked anx¬ 
iously. “Everything’s all right now; they’ve 
gone, and the boys are after them. I’m afraid 
the excitement was too much for you.” 

She gave him a pathetic smile of half-recog- 


SECRETS 153 

nition and fastened her gaze on the face of her 
hoy. 

“Yon are so wonderful, Mary,” he pursued, 
not realizing the cause of her sorrow. 

She shook her head slightly, looked at him 
and then down at the baby. 

“Baby—isn’t he all right!” Carlton asked 
apprehensively. 

She nodded sadly, the tears bursting from 
her eyes. 

“You don’t mean—is it too late to get Mc¬ 
Govern!” he cried. 

“Yes, John,” she said. 


9 



7 ' 

■ vr*.. 




















I 


' 



CHAPTER TWELVE 


Birthdays always made Mary Carlton remi¬ 
niscent. Ever since her marriage, John had 
spent as much of the day as possible with her, 
and they had talked of other years. As the chil¬ 
dren grew up, they came to take more and more 
part in the ceremony, which started with story¬ 
telling, and was inevitably followed by a birth¬ 
day cake and other much appreciated dainties. 

Mary Carlton was forty years old to-day. 
She sat before the fire, which cast a pleasant 
glow over the massive drawing-room of the 
house on Porchester Terrace, a photograph 
album on her lap. Sitting on the floor, her 
hands resting on her mother’s knees, was ten- 
year-old Audrey. Blanche, three years older, 
stood behind the arm-chair, listening intently 
to every word that her mother said. Robert, 
equally interested, but much more comfortable 
than his younger sisters, squatted, cross-legged, 
on the hearth-rug, while seventeen-year-old 
John stood by the window, his hands in his 

155 


156 


SECRETS 


pockets, intent on the conversation, but with 
an air of detachment which befitted his ad¬ 
vanced age and new swallow-tailed coat. 

“Yes—and then, Mother?” asked Audrey 
breathlessly. 

“It was just at that moment,” her mother 
went on, most dramatically, “when everything 
looked lost, that Bob, who was at the window, 
caught sight of our friends coming to the res¬ 
cue. I heard your dear father cry out, ‘We’re 
saved!’ and then I fainted away.” 

Blanche wriggled with delicious excitement. 

“Yes, Mamma—and then!” 

“None of us would be sitting here to-day if 
those brave fellows had come up a few minutes 
later,” Lady Carlton continued. “The cattle 
thieves had already broken one of the shut¬ 
ters.” 

“But I say, Mamma,” broke in Robert, 
“what had Papa done to those chaps that they 
had such a down on him?” 

His mother hesitated, and then explained 
very cautiously. 

“Well, you see, dear, a few months before, 
your father had been obliged to punish some 
of their ring-leaders very severely.” 

“But, Mamma,” inquired Audrey, “what 


SECRETS 157 

were you doing all through the fight? Weren’t 
you dreadfully frightened?” 

“I was looking after your little brother, 
dear,” she explained gently, “the one whom 
you never saw. He was only six months old 
when—that day.” 

“I bet you got in bed with him and covered 
your head with the bed-clothes. That’s what 
I’d have done,” asserted Blanche. 

“Well, Mamma didn’t,” protested John in* 
dignantly. “If it hadn’t been for her, they’d 
all have been murdered.” 

“But, Johnny, dear-” broke in his 

mother, startled. 

“And what do you know about it?” Robert 
challenged his brother. “You weren’t there.” 

John smiled tolerantly. 

“No, I wasn’t there, but I know all about 
it,” he declared. He looked at the younger 
children with a superior air. “As a matter of 
fact, Papa told me the whole story years ago, 
but I promised I wouldn’t speak of it until 
you kids were older.” 

“Oh, did he really?” mocked Robert, and, 
encouraged by Blanche’s giggles, insisted, “Do 
tell us all about it—big brother. ’ ’ 

He snickered, and his mother’s face flushed. 


158 


SECRETS 


“I didn’t know that your father told you of 
the incident, dear, ’ ’ she said. ‘ 4 Of course, Wyo¬ 
ming was a very rough country in those days 
and—things happened which—which we’d bet¬ 
ter not talk about to-day/’ 

“All right, Mamma; don’t be scared,” John 
assured her rather patronizingly. “I won’t 
give away all the gory details.” 

“I say, why not?” asked Robert abruptly, 
instantly forgetting his intended slur of a 
moment ago. 

“Yes, why not?” asked Blanche eagerly. 

“Yes, really, Mamma,” John broke in again. 
“I really don’t see why we shouldn’t know that 
you”—he extended his hand towards her with a 
masterful gesture—“were the heroine of the 
scrap. It was Mamma, ’ ’ he went on, seeing that 
Lady Carlton’s intended look of rebuke had 
turned to a blush of embarrassment, “who had 
the bright idea of pitching boiling water on the 
fellers and-” 

“That will do, Johnny, please,” his mother 
interrupted. “Let’s forget the whole ugly 
story. I can’t think what started us on it. I’m 
sure your dear father-” 

“But it wasn’t ugly,” protested Blanche, 
now in a seventh heaven of delight; “it’s 


SECRETS 


159 


lovely. And on yonr birthday, you always tell 
us lovely stories—all about your wild past.” 

“I say, Mamma,” asked the now outraged 
Robert, i ‘why didn’t you tell us about your 
part in the fight! You made out you were 
kissing and cuddling the baby, when all the 
time you were pitching boiling water on the 
terrible invaders.” 

4 ‘Shut up,” ordered John sternly. 

He walked to his mother, leaned over her 
chair, and put his hands lightly on her 
shoulders. 

“It’s a shame to tease you—and on your 
birthday, too,” he said seriously. “But we 
really can’t allow you to be so modest. Now 
own up. It was you who suggested the boil¬ 
ing water, wasn’t it! Now own up.” 

“Own up—own up,” repeated the four chil¬ 
dren together. 

“You silly children,” laughed Lady Carlton. 
“You darlings—all four of you.” She smiled 
happily at them. 

Mary, on her fortieth birthday, looked even 
more beautiful than she had when she was 
eighteen, for her natural loveliness was en¬ 
hanced by a glow of happiness and love. Her 
still luxuriant dark hair, which she wore in a 


160 SECRErTS 

coronet braid in accordance with the current 
mode, showed silver here and there, but her 
eyes were girlishly bright, and her skin mar¬ 
velously smooth. 

As Lady Carlton, she could afford the most 
fashionable creations of the leading modistes, 
and to-day, to celebrate her birthday, she was 
wearing a new Paris gown of primrose yellow 
satin and lustrous black velvet, draped into the 
very latest of bustles. 

Her children watched her admiringly, and 
seemed to have forgotten the myriad of ques¬ 
tions which they had been about to ask. Lady 
Carlton looked about her and smiled faintly 
as she thought of the scene of the fight which 
so glowingly interested her children. What a 
contrast there was between her present sur¬ 
roundings and the rough floors, hand-hewn fur¬ 
niture and bear-skin rugs of the cabin in 
Wyoming. 

Here was a stately room in a great mansion 
of Porchester Terrace. Rich mulberry-col¬ 
ored curtains framed the coming twilight. 
Above the glowing logs was a ponderous 
carved mantel, and the vast fire-place itself was 
bordered by exquisite wood carvings. The 
furniture was rich and heavy, typical of the 


161 


SECRETS 

Victorian era, but it suited admirably the 
Gothic expanse of the room and changed it 
from a church-like hall to a comfortable living- 
room. But such furnishings as horsehair chairs 
with the inevitable antimacassars, the waxed 
flowers, grotesque groups of ornamental fig¬ 
ures, that were in almost every English draw¬ 
ing-room of the period, were not in Sir John 
Carlton’s house. Something that had made his 
wife love the natural crudities of the cabin in 
Wyoming caused her to rebel against the arti¬ 
ficial crudities which were in vogue on her re¬ 
turn to England and which remained popular 
for many years. She was loved everywhere, 
but looked upon as rather an extremist when 
it came to home decoration. 

Mary turned as the doors suddenly opened, 
and a servant entered unannounced. There 
was the suspicion of a grin on his usually ex¬ 
pressionless face as he bore proudly before him 
a cake, with mountainous frosting, and lighted 
with tiny candles. Completely ignoring the 
presence of the mistress of the house, and 
plainly following the orders of young John 
Carlton, he placed the flaming cake on a table 
and quietly withdrew. 

Lady Carlton looked down at her birthday 


162 


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cake and read the elaborate sugared inscrip¬ 
tion, “To Our Darling Mummy.” She had 
never previously been embarrassed before her 
children, but now her chin quivered, and her 
lips were unsteady as she smiled. 

“My own darlings,’’ she whispered, looking 
from one to another of the triumphant chil¬ 
dren with glistening eyes. “Thank you so 
much. I only wish that Papa were here,” she 
added. 

“He sent word that he would he late,” re¬ 
marked John, his happy and superior expres¬ 
sion giving way to solemn features. 

“Oh—I’m so sorry,” said his mother, trying 
to hide her disappointment. “He said that 
he would he here as always—and I had 

hoped-” She looked at the puzzled faces 

about her, and added gaily, “but I must blow 
out the candles, all in one breath, and if I can 
do it, we shall all be happy for another year.” 

The two younger children watched her suc¬ 
cessful effort with appreciation, and even John 
showed mild interest as she took the big silver 
knife and started to cut the cake. Before long, 
all five were laughing between mouthfuls of the 
cook’s masterpiece, and shortly afterwards 


SECRETS 


163 


Blanche and Andrey were clamoring for a sec¬ 
ond slic£. Mary wondered if they should have 
it, but it was her birthday, and she could not 
even contemplate a refusal. 









CHAPTER THIRTEEN 


The doors at the end of the room opened 
again, and the servant appeared, announcing, 
“Mr. and Mrs. Marlowe—Miss Channing.” 

“Oh, golly,’* moaned Robert. 

Mary Carlton sprang up and cried, “How 
delightful,” not noticing the discouraged looks 
on the faces of her children. 

She went towards the door to meet her 
mother and her aunt. 

“Dear Mamma,” she said, embracing Mrs. 
Marlowe. 

“Many happy returns of the day, my child,” 
chanted her mother. 

“Many happy returns of the day,” said Mr. 
Marlowe. 

“Thank you, Papa,” she said—“Dear 
Auntie!” 

Miss Channing put her arms around the 
younger woman with a fervor that was remi¬ 
niscent of years ago. “My darling,” she whis¬ 
pered; “my darling Mary.” 

Mary’s mother was dressed in uncompromis- 

165 


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ing, steel-gray taffeta, and with her Paisley 
shawl precisely folded over her arm she rus¬ 
tled down the drawing-room towards the chil¬ 
dren, followed closely by Marlowe and Miss 
Channing. She immediately kissed Audrey 
and turned her cheek to Blanche. 

“Well, my lad?” inquired Marlowe of 
Robert. 

“How-de-do, Grandpa?” returned the boy 
listlessly. 

“Come to Grandma,” ordered Mrs. Mar¬ 
lowe, and he approached her with woeful lack 
of enthusiasm. “Now give Grandma a kiss,” 
she urged, offering her cheek. He pecked at it 
perfunctorily and retreated, to give way to 
John, who seemed to realize that the ordeal 
would soon be over, and gingerly touched his 
lips against her cheek. Then both boys sighed. 

“And how are you, young man?” inquired 
Marlowe of John. 

“Thank you, Sir—first rate,” he replied with 
a half-smile. His grandfather sometimes 
seemed like a rather good old sort, he suggested 
to himself, and he certainly didn’t muss one 
as his grandmother did. 

Miss Channing had been whispering eagerly 
to Mary. 


167 


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“Do yon know, darling,” she finally said 
alond, “yon don’t look a day older than when 
you ran away to marry dear John.” 

“Really, Eliza!” protested Mrs. Marlowe, 
who had returned to Blanche and seemed about 
to kiss her again, “and before the children, 
too!” 

i 1 And why shouldn’t the children know what 
a plucky and sensible little mother they have?” 
demanded Miss Channing. 

Mary stood by helplessly. Since she had 
come back from America, the wife of a rich 
man, she had never been able to enter into ar¬ 
guments with her family, or even suggest that 
arguments were out of place in her own house. 

“Oh, Auntie,” Audrey said, “Mamma has 
told us all about her runaway match.” 

Mrs. Marlowe was so decidedly shocked that 
she could only ejaculate, “Child!” 

“And you can’t hear of it often enough,” 
interpolated Miss Channing. 

“My, that must have been a lark,” said the 
appreciative Blanche. 

“Lark?” coughed Marlowe. 

“Lark, indeed?” inquired Ms wife disap¬ 
provingly. “Little ladies don’t use such 
words.” 


168 


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Mary waited until the three visitors had 
taken seats, and then sat down in her arm-chair. 

“It was very sweet of you and Papa,” she 
said gratefully, addressing her mother, “to 
send me that old book of family photographs. 
It was such a lovely present—so generous of 
you. For I know how much you value it.” 

“Yes, my dear, we certainly did,” agreed 
her mother. 

“And that, Mary, was our reason for giving 
it to you,” Marlowe added hastily. 

“We thought it would be a nice thing for you 
and the children to look at on Sunday after¬ 
noons,” Mrs. Marlowe explained. 

“How jolly,” remarked Robert, shaking his 
head. 

Marlowe meanwhile was amusing himself by 
jogging the martyred Blanche up and down on 
his knees. Mary surveyed the situation and 
asked hastily. 

“Mamma, dear, won’t you have some tea— 
and you, Auntie!” 

‘ ‘ Thank you, Mary, but we had tea before we 
left home,” Mrs. Marlowe replied. 

“Then, Papa, you’ll have a glass of sherry 
and a biscuit!” Mary asked her father. 

“Not the biscuit,” he replied, with a can- 


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169 


tious glance towards his wife, “but I might 
have a little sherry.” Noticing no disapproval 
of his willingness to take refreshment alone, he 
added: 

“Yes, I’m sure I should like a small glass of 
sherry.” 

Robert, at his mother’s nod, rang the bell for 
the servant, and the children launched into a 
description of the fine birthday party that they 
had just had with mother. There had been a 
cake, Audrey related, with white frosting and 
lots of candles. There was considerable argu¬ 
ment concerning the number of pieces that each 
had had. Mary sat by, distressed, but as al¬ 
ways when her mother was present, waiving 
her authority. 

“In my days,” Mrs. Marlowe asserted, “lit¬ 
tle ladies and gentlemen were not expected to 
speak until they were spoken to. And they 
certainly never bickered in front of their 
elders.” 

“No, indeed, but since our young days,” 
Miss Channing reminded tartly, “the times 
have been steadily improving.” 

“Really, Eliza, I’m astonished that-” 

Mrs. Marlowe noticed that the servant was 
opening the door, and coughed. 


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“A glass of sherry, please,” ordered Lady 
Carlton. 

“And yonr feet on the floor, Robert,” en¬ 
joined Mrs. Marlowe. 

“Mamma, dear,” said Mary, with a trace 
of shyness, “I don’t know whether you’ve 
noticed how my hands glitter to-day.” 

She held out her hands, smiling; almost 
every finger on each hand was covered with 
rings. 

“I had noticed, my dear,” Mrs. Marlowe re¬ 
plied, “but I thought it would be kinder to say 
nothing about it.” 

Miss Channing rose in indignation from her 
chair. 

“If I had such beautiful rings,” she as¬ 
serted, “I should wear them every day. Even 
on Sunday.” Mary laughed heartily. “Yes, I 
would,” she said with defiant emphasis, facing 
her sister. “I’d go to church with them— 
outside my gloves.” 

“I don’t go quite as far as that, Auntie,” 
laughed Mary. “It’s only in strict privacy, 
and on great occasions like to-day that I— 
shall I say glitter? I’ve a lot more beautiful 
rings like them. And each of them marks a 
great step in our fortune. John has always 



A First National Fictnre . 

“ IL’L PROTECT MY MOTHER FROM YOU, MRS. MANWARING.” 













SECRETS 


171 


given me a ring whenever he brought off some¬ 
thing really big. This, for instance,”—she 
stretched out the fourth finger of her right 
hand—“this square cut emerald. John gave 
it to me last year when he was knighted.’’ 

“And when, consequently,” volunteered Miss 
Channing, “you were forgiven for marrying 
him.” 

“Eliza, I must protest,” said Marlowe, ris¬ 
ing wrathfully. “You know as well as I do 
that I have always said that John would do 
great things.” 

Mary quickly placed her hand over her 
mouth to hide a smile, and her mother told Miss 
Channing tartly, “John’s knighthood had 
nothing to do with it, Eliza, as you know per¬ 
fectly well.” 

“No, no, of course not, Mamma, dear,” paci¬ 
fied Mary. She got up from her chair and went 
to her mother. “But the loveliest ring of all, 
Mamma,” she said softly, “I wear around my 
neck. Here it is.” 

She pulled a thin chain from her bosom and 
handed the ring at the end of it to Mrs. Mar¬ 
lowe. She scrutinized it so carefully that she 
failed even to notice the servant who entered 
and brought Marlowe his glass of sherry. 


172 


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“But, my dear,” she cried in astonishment, 
“this is only a garnet.” 

“Yes, Mamma,” Mary said, smiling. 

“And set in silver at that,” asserted Mar¬ 
lowe. 

“And it cost only four dollars,” Mary went 
on, her eyes dreamily cast upward. < ‘John rode 
forty miles to get it after we’d sold the first 
calf bred on our ranch.” 

“Very pretty, very pretty sentiment, I’m 
sure,” said Marlowe. “Ha-ha—first calf bred 
on your ranch.” He drank his sherry and gave 
the glass back to the servant. “And look at 
him to-day,” he continued. “Now you can’t 
take up a paper without seeing John’s name in 
it somewhere. He really has become a most 
remarkable man.” 

“Become!” sniffed Miss Channing. “The 
most remarkable thing that he ever did was to 
fall in love with your daughter—though you 
naturally didn’t appreciate it at the time.” 

Marlowe loftily ignored her. 

“A great man,” he murmured. “He ap¬ 
pears to have a finger in every pie. I’ve heard 
it whispered on good authority that a—a cer¬ 
tain exalted person—well, the Marquis of 
Salisbury, to be exact, had advised Her Maj- 


SECRETS 


173 


esty to include his name in the New Year’s 
Honors’ list for a peerage—or at least a bar¬ 
onetcy.” 

“Oh, Mamma,” broke in Audrey, “how 
lovely!” 

“Just fancy Papa with a crown on,” re¬ 
marked Blanche. 

Robert became vastly enthusiastic. He 
jumped up in his chair and shouted, “Three 
cheers for old Salisbury—hip—hip ” 

His mother merely smiled, but on seeing his 
grandmother’s glare, Robert subsided at once 
and sat down, waiting resignedly for the re¬ 
buke that he knew would come. 

“Robert,” Mrs. Marlowe explained, “world¬ 
ly honors are all very well in their way—but 
they are not everything. Mary,” she said, 
turning sternly towards her daughter, “your 
Papa and I would like to have a little talk with 
you alone. Perhaps the children will show 
their Auntie all the nice presents that you have 
received to-day.” 

“But, Mamma,” protested Mary, very em¬ 
barrassed, “I—I can’t very well ask Auntie 
to-” 

“Darling, don’t mind me,” Miss Channing 
assured her, rising. “I would rather be any- 



174 


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where than in the same room with your Mamma 
when she starts one of her ^little talks’! Come, 
children, where are these birthday presents ?” 

“In the school-room. I’ll show you,” of¬ 
fered Audrey, running to her. 

“Does Mamma inflict little talks on you, Au¬ 
drey!” asked Miss Channing pointedly, as they 
walked towards the door. 

“Why, no, Auntie,” the little girl said, sur¬ 
prised. “Why?” 

“Lucky child,” Miss Channing asserted, very 
audibly, and they went through the door, fol¬ 
lowed by the two other children. 

“Jealousy is a terrible affliction, isn’t it, 
dear?” sighed Mrs. Marlowe. 

“Jealousy, Mamma?” inquired Mary. 

“Yes, jealousy. Your poor aunt has never 
quite forgiven me for marrying and having a 
child of my own.” 

“Eliza is a spiteful, soured old spinster,” 
put in Marlowe vigorously. 

“I wouldn’t quite say that, William,” re¬ 
turned his wife reluctantly, “but still-” 

“Just so,” agreed Marlowe. 

Mary Carlton was so accustomed to these al¬ 
most hourly tirades that she had no thought of 
contradicting her parents. 


SECRETS 


175 


“I love Auntie,” was her quiet remark. 

“Dear Mary,” her mother returned benevo¬ 
lently, “she does make an absurd fuss about 
you, doesn’t she? And she always tried to 
create mischief between us. Now, dear,” she 
continued, changing her tone, “now for our 
little talk.” 

She sat down, and Mary took a chair opposite 
her. Mrs. Marlowe began to speak, as though 
she were reciting a parable. Her normally 
stern countenance became funereal. 

“You know, Mary,” she began sweetly, 
“there are no two people in the world who re¬ 
joice more than your Papa and myself at the— 
the outward success of your marriage. And 
your four children—though I’m afraid you 
rather spoil them still. And your wealth, your 
beautiful house, and the honors which are so 
obviously coming to you. But, my dear, dear 
child-” she lapsed into a melancholy, sym¬ 

pathetic voice. 

“Alice!” interrupted Marlowe. “As I’ve 
told you before, I don’t believe that it’s any 
business of ours to-” 

“Please, William,” his wife exhorted de¬ 
cisively. 

11 


“No, I’ll bo- 





176 


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“William,” Mrs. Marlowe said with a tone 
of finality, “that will do.” 

He sat down with a grnnt, very ill at ease. 

“Now, dear,” Mrs. Marlowe began again, 
“we’ve been wondering lately if behind all this 
splendor and success our little daughter is 
really and truly happy.” Her flinty eyes tried 
to beam with motherliness. 

“Why, of course,” Lady Carlton replied 
wonderingly. “I really think,” she asserted 
with a burst of enthusiasm, “that I must be 
the happiest woman in London.” 

“That settles it, Alice,” Marlowe announced 
decisively, getting up from his chair. “That’s 
all we wanted to he sure about.” 

“No, William,” rebuked his wife; “that’s 
not quite all.” 

Marlowe was swayed between embarrass¬ 
ment and indignation. 

It was apparent that he wished to be miles 
away. 

“Confound it all, Alice,” he interjected, 
“this may, after all, be nothing but a piece of 
idle gossip. The amount of tittle-tattle that 
goes on in your drawing-room-” 

“I was under the impression, William,” his 
wife interrupted sharply, “that this bit of ‘tit- 


177 


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tie-tattle,’ as you elegantly describe it, was first 
brought home by you from your club.” 

“H’m,” muttered Marlowe defensively. 

“Ah, well, even at the club I’ve known men to 
talk scandal.” 

“William!” cried Mrs. Marlowe. He 
shrugged his shoulders hopelessly and sat 
down. Mary, meanwhile, had become more and 
more astonished at the conversation of her 
parents, but there came a subtle change in her 
quiet voice as she asked gravely: 

“Just what is it that you want to tell me, 
Mamma?” 

Mrs. Marlowe sighed, rolled her eyes with 
an expression of hopeful piety, and leveled 
them sadly at her daughter. 

“The world you live in, child,” she related, 
“this big, gay world, is full of pitfalls and 
temptations for the inexperienced. And, after 
all, dear, your husband was no more born into 
it than you. And in his position-” 

“So it’s my husband you are speaking of?” 
inquired Mary in a taut voice. 

“Of course,” Mrs. Marlowe admitted depre- 
catingly, “there may be nothing to it, but your 
Papa has heard, and I, too, have heard, that 
his name has recently been coupled with that 



178 


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of a certain lady whose reputation, I regret to 
say—well, I know for a fact that onr dear 
Queen has absolutely refused to receive her. 

And not only that-” 

She spoke almost triumphantly when her 
daughter remarked with decision, 

“Thank you, Mamma, I’m sure you mean 
very well. I don’t think we’ll pursue the sub¬ 
ject any further, if you don’t mind.” 


CHAPTER FOURTEEN 


Lady Caklton was deeply hart. She had not 
failed to notice John’s apathy during the past 
few months, hut, as on previous occasions, her 
faith was supreme that some day he would re¬ 
turn to her with the love that she knew so 
well. Whispers had come to her from avowedly 
well-meaning persons, but she had dismissed 
them with a lofty gesture. So often, she had 
told herself hopefully, a slight indiscretion on 
the part of a man, a moment of thoughtlessness, 
were misconstrued. And then people talked, 
half the time without cause or reason. It was 
humiliating, however, to have her own parents 
who, in years past, had thought so little of 
John, bring to her reports that were being ban¬ 
died about the clubs and drawing-rooms. 

Mrs. Marlowe was frankly offended at her 
daughter’s attitude. She had a great piece of 
news to offer, and it was abruptly halted before 
she had even begun to tell it. She could not 
quite understand Mary’s poise at the moment; 
her daughter, even after her return from Amer- 
179 


180 


SECRETS 


ica, and her recent return to family grace, had 
rather pleasingly bowed to her and to her de¬ 
cisions. She realized that she could scarcely 
force conversation in her daughter’s own house 
after this rebuff, and, although she was ex¬ 
tremely nettled, she decided that she must yield 
gracefully, though she could not prevent show¬ 
ing it, very resentfully. Her daughter, rich 
and prominent though she might be, had made 
her own bed, and now she must lie on it. This 
was certainly the last time that she would ever 
interfere in the matter of domestic troubles. 
After this—though Mary might regret it—she 
would keep to herself any talk that might come 
to her about Sir John Carlton, who, after all, 
caused the family no little disgrace many years 
ago. 

“Very well, my dear,” she agreed. “I’ve no 
wish to say another word. It was only by 
earnest wish and prayer that I could bring 
myself to mention this unpleasant matter at 
all; but since you don’t think it worth while to 
listen to your mother-” 

The servant opened the doors at the end of 
the room and announced, 

“Mrs. Eustace Mainwaring.” 

Marlowe, who a moment ago had given a 


SECRETS 181 

huge sigh of relief at the turn of affairs, mut¬ 
tered, <4 Good God!” 

“Really,” cried Mrs. Marlowe in an out¬ 
raged voice. She exchanged amazed glances 
with her husband, and drew herself up haugh¬ 
tily. “I am afraid that we shall have to go,” 
she announced, as Mrs. Mainwaring came into 
the room, resplendent in apple-green silk. 

She was a strikingly handsome woman in the 
late thirties, and the exact antithesis to Mary 
in personal appearance. She was blonde, with 
luxuriant, straight-combed golden hair, and 
light blue eyes which seemed to take in every¬ 
thing about her as they flashed and snapped 
with frank interest. Mrs. Mainwaring was 
taller than anyone in the room, but exqui¬ 
site contours made one forget her stateliness. 
Her eyes were rather too bold and inquiring, 
and tiny facial lines seemed to be hardened— 
those were her only apparent faults as one saw 
her for the first time. 

She glanced at the family group, and walked 
confidently towards Mary, who had risen as she 
entered. 

“How do you do, Lady Carlton?” she said. 

“How do you do?” Mary returned gra¬ 
ciously. 


182 


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11 Then you remember me?” the visitor asked. 

“Oh, yes, quite well. May I introduce my 
mother, Mrs. Marlowe, Mrs. Mainwaring?” 

In response to Mrs. Mainwaring’s polite ex¬ 
clamation of greeting, Mrs. Marlowe primly 
nodded her head. Marlowe, on being intro¬ 
duced, was much more cordial, however. Mary 
immediately had the situation in hand. 

“We’ve been having a great family event,” 
she said, in laughing explanation. “You see, 
it’s my birthday, and we’re all celebrating it. 
Do sit down.” 

“William,” urged Mrs. Marlowe, who had 
been edging towards the door, with specious 
disapproval of her husband’s interest in the 
newcomer. 

“You’re not going already, Mamma?” Mary 
asked. 

“Yes, dear,” her mother replied; “I don’t 
care to leave the horses waiting in this cold 
weather. We have had such an interesting aft¬ 
ernoon.” 

She nodded curtly to Mrs. Mainwaring, and 
left the room, followed by her husband. 

“Please excuse me for a moment,” asked 
Lady Carlton, immediately. “I always like to 
go to the door with my parents. They are old- 


SECRETS 


183 


fashioned enough to appreciate greatly snch 
little attentions. 

“Of course/’ Mrs. Mainwaring replied. 

She got np, and went to gaze into the glow¬ 
ing embers of the fire-place. She was rather 
perplexed to see John’s wife so composed, and 
when her parents were there, too. Of course, 
there could not have been a scene, but she ex¬ 
pected that that dainty woman would at least 
have shown some sign of concern when she was 
announced. Lady Carlton knew; John had 
told her so. She did not notice the young John 
Carlton, who had quietly come into the room, 
until he spoke to her. 

“Mrs. Mainwaring, I believe,” he said, with 
youthful brusqueness, and a decided touch of 
importance. 

She turned and looked at him. 

“Yes—and you’re—Johnny?” she asked, 
with a smile, appraising the handsome boy be¬ 
fore her. 

“I’m—John Carlton,” he corrected. 

“Oh, I beg pardon,” she resumed, in meek 
apology; “Mr. John Carlton. You see,” she 
explained carelessly, “your father has so often 
told me of his son, John, that it slipped out un¬ 
awares. I’m sorry.” She paused and, as he 


184 


SECRETS 


made no reply, went on, “You’re not in the 
least like your father.” 

“No—Mrs. Mainwaring—I hope you will 
not-” 

She quickly sensed the serious hostility in 
his tone, and made an effort to avert any out¬ 
break until Lady Carlton should come back 
into the room and take command of the sit¬ 
uation. 

“I saw you the other day riding in the park,” 
she said lightly, smiling at him. “I don’t sup¬ 
pose you noticed me. You were having a good 
deal of trouble with your mount—and I thought 
you managed the situation beautifully. So 
many people lose their tempers with a nervy 
horse.” He seemed about to speak, and she 
added quickly, “But that wasn’t the last time 
I saw you.” 

“No?” inquired John politely, though he 
was very anxious to speak at length to her. 

“It was at the Star and Garter,” she pur¬ 
sued hastily. “You remember? You came in 
with a jolly party just as your father and I 
were leaving. I wanted to meet you, but we 
were in such a hurry that-” 

“Mrs. Mainwaring,” interrupted John des¬ 
perately, “why do you come here?” 



SECRETS 


185 


4 ‘Well/’ she laughed, “if that isn’t just like 
your father. He has the disconcerting habit 
of firing rude questions at you like pistol shots. 
It’s taken the best part of a year to-” 

“I suppose that you’ve come to see my 
mother,” John said doggedly. 

“Well?” the lady asked, somewhat loftily. 

“Why?” insisted John. 

“You’re very rude, Mr. Carlton,” she re¬ 
turned. 

“I—I’m sorry—I don’t want to be rude,” he 
said, abashed. “But does my father know that 
you are here?” 

“What do you mean by asking such ques¬ 
tions?” She faced him angrily, and noticed 
that the square chin which she knew so well 
in his father was desperately set. 

“I have to think of my mother,” he cried. 
“You won’t ask me to believe that you’re visit¬ 
ing her with my father’s consent. In—in spite 
of everything—I know him better than that. 
You’ve no—no right to be here, Mrs. Main- 
waring.” The woman rose angrily from her 
chair and stood before him. “And I ask you 
to go before my mother comes back,” he in¬ 
sisted. 

“How dare you!” she cried, in a fury. 



186 


SECRETS 


“I must protect my mother,” the boy replied 
with determination. “There’s no one else here 
to do it.” 

Mrs. Mainwaring forgot that she was talking 
to a youth. 

“Other women beside your mother have a 
right to protection,” she declared breathlessly. 

“Not women like you,” he asserted, with 
boyish scorn. 

“Women—like—me!” She whispered the 
words angrily. Then she laughed. “Women 
like me—you’re a man of such experience,” she 
mocked. “How old are you! Sixteen, isn’t 
it?” 

“That’s neither here nor there,” he said, 
earnestly. “But, as a matter of fact, I’m over 
seventeen.” 

“Not really!” She laughed and imitated 
his voice. “Women like me!” 

He stood there with clenched fists; he wanted 
to strike her. There was a pause, and with 
a change of voice, she asked: 

“What do you know about your father and 
me?” 

“What everybody does,” he replied dully. 

“Everybody?” 

“Yes,” he said, “everybody.” 


SECRETS 


187 


“ Everybody ?” she repeated. “Then she— 
she knows—your mother ?” *5 

“ Mother ?” he cried horrified. “No! Good 
God, no! And she must be kept from knowing 
at all costs. She knows nothing of that side of 
life. She’s always been shielded and pro¬ 
tected,” he explained earnestly. “It would 
break her heart if she ever knew that 

father-” He stopped, and then went on 

pleadingly, “Mrs. Mainwaring!” 

At that moment Mary came into the room. 

“I’m so sorry to have been obliged to run 
away,” she apologized. She moved to the table 
to take up her crewelwork. “It must be a 
year since we last met,” she resumed. 

“Oh, quite that,” Mrs. Mainwaring replied, 
with a tinge of insolence. 

“Do sit down,” urged Mary. “And have 
you been abroad?” 

“No—unless you call Scotland abroad. I 
was there last August. I met your husband, 
as I daresay he told you.” 

“Not that I remember,” Mary said calmly. 
“Johnny, dear,” she said, turning towards 
her son, “will you please tell Blanche that it’s 
high time she began practicing? Mrs. Main¬ 
waring,” she went on, “do you remember, as 


188 SECRETS 

a child, the utter boredom of those endless 
scales ?” 

‘‘Scales?” inquired the visitor rather nerv¬ 
ously. “Oh, on the piano. Dreadful, weren’t 
they!” 

“Mother,” cried John urgently. 

“Tell the child,” directed Mary in a tone 
of gentle dismissal, “that she needn’t practice 
more than half an hour, because it’s my birth¬ 
day.” 

John paused for a moment, and then ac¬ 
cepted the inevitable. 

“All right, Mother.” He bowed stiffly to 
Mrs. Mainwaring, and with a “Good-by,” left 
the room. 

Lady Carlton took up her work, and with ex¬ 
quisite composure, remarked, 

“Some women of my age dislike their birth¬ 
days. I don’t. I shouldn’t mind a bit if I had 
two a year. It’s so delightful to come down in 
the morning and find the table piled with let¬ 
ters and presents.” 

“A table groaning with checks and jewelry 
would hardly reconcile me to a birthday,” Mrs. 
Mainwaring replied with a hard, nervous laugh. 

“Are you serious?” asked Lady Carlton. 

“Horribly so.” 


189 


SECRETS 

“And yet, yon are a young woman—younger 
than I,” pursued Mary. “I'm forty to-day. 
Would you say so to look at me?” 

“I really don't know,” parried her visitor 
dubiously. “No—I shouldn’t. But then, of 
course, I know that you have a boy who is al¬ 
most a man, so you must be.” 

“I was very young when I married,” Lady 
Carlton explained. “Probably you've heard 
that my husband and I eloped when he was 
twenty-one and I was barely eighteen.” 

“Yes,” said Mrs. Mainwaring, “I've heard 
something of the sort. Awfully romantic!” 

“Wasn't it?” returned Lady Carlton. 

“And romance must be jolly—to look back 
upon.” 

“Oh, but I don’t look back upon mine,” pro¬ 
tested Mary naively. She smiled sweetly. 
“You see,” she went on, “I feel my romance 
still to be with me, and I'm looking forward to 
more than I can look back upon. I'm afraid,” 
she said, with a little laugh, “that you’ll think 
me very silly and sentimental for a woman of 
my age.” 

“I should rather say optimistic,” Mrs. Main- 
waring returned, apparently realizing that this 
was the time for her to throw down the gauge, 


190 SECRETS 

if she were ever to do it* “And blind,” she 
added. 

“ Blind f” inquired Mary gravely. 

“Yes, Lady Carlton,” she reiterated, 
“blind.” 

“Blind? I believe that I understand what 
you mean, but-” 

“No, you don’t understand,” contradicted 
Mrs. Mainwaring excitedly, “but I intend that 
you shall.” 


CHAPTER FIFTEEN 


“I have been wondering why yon came here 
to-day,” Lady Carlton said with frank surprise. 
“Your visit was certainly unexpected. But I 
may not be as blind as you think, Mrs. Main- 
waring.” 

“What do you mean by that!” her visitor 
asked. 

“'Why,” returned Lady Carlton, “it’s over 
a year since we met. I called on you shortly 
afterwards. You have never returned my call 
until to-day.” 

“No—but-” 

“And do you really suppose that I don’t 
know why you”—Mary laughed with a trace of 
bitterness—“dropped me?” 

“Then—you know?” Mrs. Mainwaring asked 
eagerly. “But your son told me just now-” 

“My son?” inquired Lady Carlton, admir¬ 
ably imposing. “How dared you to speak 
about this to my son?” 

“No—no—I beg of you to believe me. I 
didn’t speak to him. It was he—he didn’t want 
me to meet you. He asked me to leave the 

191 


192 SECEETS 

house. He—lie said- 99 she paused in con¬ 

fusion. 

“Well?” inquired Lady Carlton. 

“He said that everybody knew about—about 
your husband and me—everybody but you. He 
said you knew nothing.” 

“Johnny said that,” pondered Mary, half to 
herself. Then, drawing herself up with su¬ 
preme dignity, she announced, “If you came 
here with the intention of hurting me, Mrs. 
Mainwaring, you’ve succeeded. It’s very bit¬ 
ter to me that my son should know of his 
father’s sin.” 

“I—I didn’t mean to hurt you,” the other 
woman said, almost ashamed. “But now,” she 
went on recklessly, with a sudden burst of pas¬ 
sion, “I’m glad to hurt you. Who are you to 
sit in judgment on him? ‘His sin—my sin,’ 
you say. What is sin? Who are you to have 
the whole life of a man like that? You’ve never 
lived and understood. You’re cold; you’re 
faithful and good and dutiful. Duty—yes, it’s 
your duty to keep him chained up to you; it’s 
your duty to deny him the joy and freedom 
and—passion he was born for. Oh, it’s not 
women like me—it’s women like you who ruin 
men and break their hearts and lives.” 


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193 


Mary had sat there, looking before her, dur¬ 
ing this outburst. Mrs. Mainwaring stood up 
and walked toward the door slowly and wear¬ 
ily, her passion spent. 

Lady Carlton followed her quickly, and, be¬ 
fore she had opened the door, demanded, 
“Mrs. Mainwaring, you didn’t come here to¬ 
day to tell me about all that. What have you 
come to see me about?” 

Mrs. Mainwaring stopped shortly, hesitated 
for a moment, and then announced, “My hus¬ 
band is divorcing me. John—Sir John—will 
be cited as co-respondent. We’re not defend¬ 
ing it—there’s really no defense—except love. ’ ’ 
She paused defiantly, tossing her head, and 
watching every move of the woman before 
her. 

‘ ‘ Love ? Love ? ’ ’ Mary mused wonderingly. 
1 ‘ So that’s why you have come here 1 ’’ she asked 
abruptly. “To tell me that my husband is in 
love with you—that he—loves you?” 

“Yes,” her visitor whispered vehemently. 
“And to ask you to—to let him go. Without 
your consent, he’ll never leave you. He won’t 
even ask you to let him go. He says it’s use¬ 
less—that you’d never give him his freedom, 
no matter what he might have done. He doesn’t 


194 SECRETS 

know I’m here, but I bad to come. I bad to 
be certain. ’ ’ 

Mary’s face twitched involuntarily; she was 
glad that the other woman’s eyes were averted, 
and that she had an instant in which to com¬ 
pose herself. 

44 My husband—my husband told you that!” 
she asked incredulously. 

“Yes,” said Mrs. Mainwaring. 

4 4 Oh, poor John, poor John—he must be 
rather hard pressed to say such foolish things,” 
Maiy murmured, half to herself, with a ghost 
of a smile on her face. 

44 What do you mean?” asked Mrs. Mainwar¬ 
ing sharply. 

4 4 But you can set your mind at rest, Mrs. 
Mainwaring,” she added proudly, and always 
trying to smile. 44 I shall never keep my hus¬ 
band against his will, and the moment he wishes 
to leave me he’s free to go.” 

44 You—really mean that?” asked Mrs. Main¬ 
waring, her face lighting with happy surprise. 

“Yes,” Lady Carlton said solemnly, “and I 
imagine that that is all that we have to say to 
each other.” 

Mrs. Mainwaring looked intently at her and 
realized that she meant what she said. As she 


SECRETS 195 

again turned towards the door, it opened, and 
Sir John Carlton came in. 

He was gravely clad, as befitted his impor¬ 
tant business and social position. His hair was 
gray in patches, and his determined chin was 
even more conspicuous than it had been when 
he had taken a young girl from the balcony of 
an English mansion. But any one who had 
known him in earlier years would have recog¬ 
nized him at once. 

He stopped short as he saw Mrs. Mainwar- 
ing, and his face darkened. He threw a des¬ 
perate glance at his wife, who was very self- 
possessed, much more so than her visitor, he 
thought. 

“Mary,” he said in greeting. 

“Yes, John,” she replied. 

“John, I-” broke in Mrs. Mainwaring al¬ 

most simultaneously. 

Carlton silenced her with an angry glance. 

Mary was looking straight before her, her 
eyes staring incredulously, although, in her 
heart, she had known for such a long time. 

“Then you know, Mary!” asked John, with 
difficulty repeating her name. “You know?” 

“Yes, John,” she said, wincing. 

“But you were mistaken, John,” protested 


196 SECRETS 

Mrs. Mainwaring, a sudden note of hope in her 
voice. 

1 ‘Mistaken?” asked Sir John. 6 ‘What do 
you mean?” 

“Your wife,” said Mrs. Mainwaring, with a 
burst of exultation, “says that she won’t stand 
in our way.” 

“What do you mean by that?” 

He walked towards her, fear and yet men¬ 
ace in his attitude. Then he turned to Mary, 
who stood there, trying to hide her face by low¬ 
ering it. ‘ ‘ Mary—what—what ? ” he asked. 

“And what have you said?” he demanded of 
Mrs. Mainwaring. “What have you told her?” 

“Lady Carlton understands,” she replied, 
with a yearning look at the man before her. 
“She’s willing to set you free, John.” She 
took her lower lip in her teeth and went on 
breathlessly, “She told me so, John.” 

“Free?” asked John, turning towards his 
wife. “You would set me free? Is this true?” 

Mary averted her eyes from him. 

“Yes, John,” she said. “You can be free if 
you want to be.” 

“Mary!” cried Carlton, a note of pure terror 
in his voice. 

She stood motionless and silent, and the 


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197 


pleading tone with which he again cried, 
4 ‘Mary,’ ’ had no effect on her immobility. Sir 
John turned from his wife, and his demeanor 
became harsh as he asked Mrs. Mainwaring, 
“You—what have you told her? What are you 
doing here? What—lies have you told my 
wife?” 

Mrs. Mainwaring seemed about to faint; she 
clasped her hands before her and cried, “Oh! 
Oh!” 

“Now, answer me, answer me,” went on Sir 
John vindictively. 

“John!” commanded Lady Carlton. 

He saw that he was gradually losing his hold 
on himself, and he said to her in a low voice, 4 4 I 
beg your pardon.” 

“I’ve not lied,” protested Mrs. Mainwaring. 
“I told Lady Carlton that you loved me, and 
that you wanted to be free to marry me. Are 
those lies, John?” She looked yearningly to¬ 
ward him. 

“Are those lies, John?” Mary asked, quietly. 

44 Yes—they are, ’ ’ he said. ‘ 4 1 am very sorry 
that-” 

“So you dare to-” Mrs. Mainwaring be¬ 

gan, moving towards him. 

“But not your lies,” said Sir John with a 



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sorry smile. “They were mine.” When he 
saw that Mrs. Mainwaring was about to speak, 
he urged, “No, please; whenever I spoke to you 
of love, I lied. You say you believed me.” He 
gave a contemptuous laugh. “And have you 
always believed your lovers when they talked 
to you of their love?” 

“You-” Mrs. Mainwaring stood there, 

sudden hatred written on her face. 

“Well, why not?” Carlton asked. “You 
never pretended that I was the only one. Why 
keep that back now? We all swore we loved 
you. And if you believed us, you must have 
had a queer notion of love. But you no more 
believed in my love than I believed in yours.” 

“You-” Again she was unable to class¬ 

ify him as she wished. 

“Cad,” he volunteered—“quite so. And a 
great deal more than that—just cad. And now 
you want me to marry you! That certainly 
would be eternal punishment. We both deserve 
a special hell for our sins, and if we were mar¬ 
ried, we’d get it.” 

He went to the bell and pulled it, and then 
walked firmly towards the door. Mrs. Main¬ 
waring watched him with burning eyes, and 
tossed her head as he opened the door and 


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199 


nodded meaningly towards it. Scornfully she 
turned her eyes on Mary, and on John Carlton. 
As she came to her former lover, she looked at 
him from head to foot, and then turned back 
to Mary. 

“So far as I am concerned, Lady Carlton,” 
she sneered, rage and contempt in her voice, 
“you may keep your husband—if you still 
want him.” 

A half-smile came on Mary’s face. 

“Thank you,” she said with the utmost of 
sincerity. 












CHAPTER SIXTEEN 


Mrs. Mainwaring strode through the door, 
and Carlton closed it behind her. This unex¬ 
pected thunderbolt had shaken his poise. It 
was such an incident as he might have imagined 
many times in past years; and he had even con¬ 
sidered how he might meet it when it came. 
But the reality, so abrupt, so terrible with its 
occurrence, and in its possible consequences, 
unnerved him. . Though he was able to muster 
some degree of dignity, he was not the suave, 
masterful person who had, an hour ago, decided 
to leave a group of admirers at the club and go 
home to his wife’s birthday party. He was 
years older; the onus of worries easily, or with 
effort, turned aside in the past overwhelmed 
him, all at once. He turned his face, with its 
baffled, sorrowful eyes, towards his wife, who 
stood before him, avoiding his inquiring gaze. 
She seemed very fragile now, very broken, as 
she slowly made her way to the sofa and sat 
down, mechanically picking up her crewel work. 
Her needle slowly drew the fine woolen thread 
201 


202 


SECRETS 


upwards and downwards through the cloth. 

Mary’s thoughts were in a whirl. She, too, 
might not have been so bewildered if she had 
known an hour before that Mrs. Mainwaring 
was about to make that astounding demand of 
her. She could have pondered other incidents, 
some of which took place almost simultaneously 
with John’s assurance that they could now al¬ 
ways have anything that money could buy. 
Often she had suspected, and sometimes she 
had been certain of, her husband’s domestic 
lapses, but time had overcome them; he always 
had come back to her and unknowingly assured 
her that he loved his wife above all other 
women. 

Of course, she had heard the gossip of this 
latest affair, and had been perplexed when her 
oldest son had come from the Star and Garter 
and answered a curt “Yes,” when she asked 
him if he had seen his father there. She re¬ 
membered that now, and knew the reason for 
the boy’s recent tenderness towards her, and 
the cause of his youthful outburst that after¬ 
noon. 

John Carlton walked down the room and with 
difficulty asked his wife, “Mary, is there any¬ 
thing—that you might want to say to me?” 



sfipll 




A First National Picture. 

ALWAYS THE PATIENT WATCHER OUTSIDE THE SICK ROOM 


Secrets. 








SECRETS 


203 


She did not look up at him, hut he could see 
a tear gently force itself through her lashes 
and fall on the work in which she seemed to 
have such a studious interest. 

“Yes, John, ,, she said slowly, “I want you 
to tell me everything.” 

“You mean—about her?” he asked reluc¬ 
tantly, hoping that she would not urge him to 
go into details which now seemed sordid and 
unworthy of description. 

“No,” his wife replied quietly. “We’ve fin¬ 
ished with her. I want to know about—the 
others.” 

“The others!” he ejaculated, thoroughly 
frightened. 

“Yes, John,” she insisted. 

“What—what do you mean!” the man par¬ 
ried, trying to collect himself. 

“I think you know what I mean, John,” she 
observed, her underlip quivering slightly, and 
more tears falling from her eyes. “Don’t you 
know, John?” 

“Yes—but—how did you—how could you 
have heard?” he asked incredulously. 

“There are always people anxious and— 
glad—to tell us such things,” she explained 
rather brokenly, “and often we—we women 


204 SECRETS 

don’t need to be told. Somehow, we—know— 
sometimes.’ 9 

“Yon know?” be repeated fearfully. 

“Yes, John,” she said. 

She had not yet looked at him. He rather 
wished that she would glance up; he wanted 
to see her face, yet he winced at the thought 
of meeting her eyes. She quietly went on work¬ 
ing, waiting without impatience for what she 
knew he must tell. Sir John made no effort 
to conceal his wretchedness; he had the appear¬ 
ance of a boy about to be thrashed as he started 
to pace the floor, halted, began to speak, and 
did not utter a sound. Finally he sighed, and 
admitted. 

“It was at Montevideo, when I went there 
with Hawkes and McAllister in—in eighty-one 
that I—that I first—she was the widow of a 
South American rancher. We met on board.” 
He looked helplessly at his wife. “Mary,” he 
urged incoherently, “she was nothing to me— 
I swear it—she was nothing to me, nor I to 
her. We just met—and fooled—and somehow 
we—why, she wasn’t even pretty—nor a lady. 
But you were far away. Thousands of miles 
away. 

“Oh, what’s the use of talking,” he cried 


SECRETS 


205 


in desperation. “I—I can’t explain. You’d 
never understand. Get rid of me. I’m all that 
woman said I was.” 

He walked to the fireplace and placed his 
hand on the mantelpiece, bending his head for¬ 
ward against it. His wife paid no more atten¬ 
tion to his expressions or actions than as if he 
had been in another room. Her tears came 
steadily now, but she stolidly continued her 
needle-work. At no time did she raise her 
voice above a gentle, barely audible tone, 
which one who could not see her sad face would 
have thought devoid of any emotion other than 
sympathy. 

“ John, you haven’t told me everything,” she 
persisted after a slight pause. 

He smiled grimly and shook his head. 

“Well,” he went on, “when I financed that 
comic opera in New York, there was a—a dan¬ 
cer in the company-” He turned towards 

Mary almost appealingly. “You wouldn’t 
know her name if I told it to you. I-” 

“You mean Cora Standish?” Mary suggested 
abruptly. 

Again he was astounded, and he said, “Yes,” 
with a deep sigh. “But why do you insist that 
I tell you--” 


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“I was in New York at that time,” she de¬ 
clared. 

“ Yes,” he agreed. 

“And not thousands of miles away!” 

“No,” he said, and then, in extenuation, 
“Mary, I didn’t bring that forward to excuse 
or defend myself. I knew well enough that I 
have no excuse nor defense. I wanted to try 
and explain.” 

Mary’s mouth twisted in a plaintive smile. 

“But that explanation doesn’t apply in the 
case of Miss Standish,” she said, this time 
sadly. 

“No-” stammered Carlton. “There’s 

only one explanation,” he cried desperately, 
“the beast in me. If you wanted to force that 
—there it is. The beast! And I hated her all 
the time. I hated her as I hated all of them. 
You wanted everything; there it is,” he said, 
extending his hands towards her. “Now, what 
are you going to do with me!” 

Mary put down her crewelwork for the first 
time; the embroidery was irregular in spots, 
and had moist patches on it. She spoke slowly, 
following carefully the thoughts that came to 
her. 

“Yes, it was wrong of me,” she reflected, 



SECRETS 


207 


raising her tear-dimmed eyes. “It was selfish 
and wrong. When I first guessed what was 
happening, I should have spoken. But I never 
wanted to he certain, John/ 7 she admitted with 
infinite tenderness. “I was so afraid that, if 
you realized that I knew, there’d be a barrier 
of distrust and shame between us. I thought 
only of myself; I should have thought of sav¬ 
ing you.” 

‘‘Me!” he asked in disgust. “I’m not worth 
saving from anything.” Then, with sudden 
earnest entreaty, “Mary—Mary—I can’t ex¬ 
pect you to believe it. How could you! But 
I must tell you all the same. Never once— 
never for a moment-” 

His wife was looking at him expectantly, 
with wide, inquiring eyes; he glanced at her, 
faltered, and sat down in the armchair, bury¬ 
ing his face in his hands. 

“What’s the use—what’s the use!” he 
maundered. “You wouldn’t believe it. You’d 
never understand.” 

Mary, her whole body quivering, looked at 
him, the dawn of a tender smile upon her lips. 
Her moist eyes gleamed with hope, as she 
called gently, “John.” 

He lifted his face from his hands. 


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“You want to tell me, don’t you,” she begged, 
as the tears, now unrestrained, flowed down 
her cheeks, “that you never once stopped lov¬ 
ing me, even when you were the most unfaith¬ 
ful? You want to tell me,” she pleaded, “that 
those women were nothing to you—that I was 
really everything—always.” 

“Yes—-yes—yes,” he assented, with passion¬ 
ate eagerness. 

Her sorrow-racked features relaxed and be¬ 
came a vision of loveliness. Once more she 
struggled with the tears. 

“Do you think that I didn’t know that?” 
she asked intensely. “Do you think that I 
could ever have borne it if I hadn’t been as 
sure of your love as I was sure of the love 
of God?” 

Carlton was awe-struck. 

“You—you knew? You understood?” he 
cried. Then, upon his next thought, he said 
soberly, “But that woman said you were will¬ 
ing to let me go.” 

“Mrs. Mainwaring told me that you wanted 
your freedom. Do you suppose, John,” she 
asked proudly, “I should ever hold you to me 
against your will?” 

“I was lying,” he protested. 


SECRETS 


209 


“Yes, John, I know you were,” she said 
with a sigh. He did not speak, and she took 
up her work again. He was staring at her, 
breathing quickly. 

“Mary,” he said suddenly, with more plead¬ 
ing than command in his voice, “come here; 
I want you.” 

“Oh, John,” she breathed. 

“I want you—I need you,” he persisted. 
She hesitated for a moment and went to him. 
He was about to seize her hands, but he re¬ 
membered suddenly, and stopped. Speaking 
through gritted teeth, he asked: 

“You can still love me—in spite of all this!” 

“Yes, John,” she said, her chin quivering. 

“Why should you love me!” he demanded 
violently, still restraining his fierce desire to 
touch her. “Why should you ever have loved 
me! I’ve always been a brute and a bully. 
I’ve always wanted things and gone for them 
over broken hearts and lives. Money—power 
—women—I wanted them all and I got them. 
But none of them means anything to me now. 
All I want in the world is your love and for¬ 
giveness. ’ ’ 

“Oh, John,” she cried tremulously. “It’s 
not my forgiveness you should ask.” 


210 


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“Mary,” he urged, 4 ‘think of what’s still to 
come. My name will soon be blazed abroad 
for all the world to read. Your friends will 
pity and despise you. Our children will know 
their father for the man he is. Our children,” 
he cried despairingly. “My God—my God!” 
He knelt at her feet, clutching pathetically for 
her hands. 

Once more she became strongly assertive, and 
her face took on an attitude of determination. 

“John—John—stand up, John—stand up,” 
she directed. “You’re strong and brave,” she 
told the weakened figure before her. “You’ve 
brought all this on yourself, and you must go 
through with it—like the man you are. We 
won a fight once over there—when there seemed 
no hope. There’s a harder battle before us 
now, dear—but we’ll win—if we fight together.” 

“Together—together!” he whispered. 

“Yes, John,” she promised. “I shall al¬ 
ways be at your side when you want me.” 

“When I want you—want you!” he ex¬ 
claimed. 6 ‘ Oh, Mary, ’ ’ his broken voice assured 
her, as he knelt at her feet and kissed her hand, 
“I shall always want you.” 


EPILOGUE 


It was almost dawn, but a score of dim lights 
shone through the curtains of the house on Por- 
chester Terrace. Decorously placed globes 
gleamed gently on the high walls on either side 
of the carriage entrance, and cast a glow on 
the masses of shrubbery along the driveway 
which led to the house. Dr. Arbuthnot’s limo- 
sine was still near the front door, darkly shaded 
by an overhanging willow. His chauffeur had 
long since abandoned talk with the man who 
now slept at the wheel of one of the Carlton 
motors, and who had been ordered to wait— 
for anything that might happen. Sir John was 
dying, and there was no telling what might be 
needed during the night. 

Mary Carlton still sat in the big easy-chair 
before the fire in Sir John’s dressing room. 
Her hands were clasped over the leather-bound 
book as though in prayer, and she was now fast 
asleep. 

The door of the bedroom opened, and the 
hand of a nurse softly drew back the curtain 
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to allow Dr. Arbuthnot to precede her from the 
sick-room. She closed the door, and, as the 
physician made his way towards Mary’s chair, 
he motioned for her to follow, placing a warn¬ 
ing finger on his lips. 

4 ‘She’s fast asleep,” he said in a low 
voice. 

“Poor old lady,” sympathized the nurse; 
“she was absolutely worn out.” 

“We’ll let her sleep as long as possible,” 
decided Dr. Arbuthnot. “Our news can wait. 
They don’t breed such women nowadays. You 
had better tell the others not to come up just 
yet.” 

“Very well, sir.” She nodded and went to¬ 
wards the farther door of the room. 

Mary Carlton suddenly sat upright and 
opened her eyes. 

“Yes, John- V 9 she asked, listening in¬ 

tently. 

“Lady Carlton—I—I thought I-” began 

the doctor, coming quickly to her side. 

She got up from her chair after a second’s 
bewilderment, and clutched at his hand. 

“Doctor—tell me—tell me.” 

“I’ve got good news for you, dear lady,” 
he assured her smilingly. 


SECRETS 213 

“Good? Good?” she asked in an ecstatic 
whisper. 

“Very good,” he repeated. “Sir John has 
responded amazingly to Sir Gilbert’s treat¬ 
ment.” 

“Yes-?” she asked as before, beside her¬ 

self with joy. 

“The action of the heart is stronger and 
more regnlar,” he announced, “and his breath¬ 
ing is easier. We’ve tided over the crisis and 
can now hope for the best.” 

“Yon—mean—he’ll—live?” the old lady 
asked intensely, still clutching his hand. 

“Yes, Lady Carlton.” 

She burst into a fit of sobbing, and the doc¬ 
tor gently forced her back into her chair. She 
wiped the tears from her eyes, and after a mo¬ 
ment or two looked up at him. 

“It’s silly to—to cry when one’s happy— 
so happy,” she announced with a quavering lit¬ 
tle laugh. “Now I must go to him,” she added, 
rising determinedly. 

“Not quite yet, please, Lady Carlton,” he 
urged, placing a detaining hand on her shoul¬ 
der. 

“But he’ll want me,” she said in astonish¬ 
ment at the enforced delay. 


214 


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“Of course he will,” Dr. Arbuthnot agreed 
soothingly. “And Sir Gilbert will tell you at 
once when he’s strong enough to see you.” 

“But the children—the children,” she broke 
in suddenly. “Do they know? They’ll be so 
glad.” 

“Nurse has gone to tell them the good news,” 
he told her. 

“The children,” she repeated musingly, with 
a little smile; “they don’t quite understand. 
They’re so young and bright and clever. They 
know so much more than we older people in so 
many ways. But there are some things,” she 
added with a sigh of happiness, “that they 
don’t know as well as we do. Oh, nurse”—the 
nurse came from another room—“have you 
told them?” 

“Yes, Lady Carlton,” she said. 

“Aren’t they very happy?” she asked with 
eagerness. 

“Yes, indeed,” the nurse replied. “They’re 
most relieved, and they told me to be sure 
and see that you didn’t overtire yourself.” 

“Overtire!” She and the doctor smiled at 
each other. “Thank you, nurse, I’m going to 
take the greatest care of myself.” The doctor 


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215 


alone detected the slightly ironical touch in her 
voice. “You see, Doctor/’ she went on, more 
gravely, “that’s just what I mean. They don’t 
quite understand.” 

“No?” he inquired politely. 

“As though there could be such a thing as 
overtiring oneself in the service of love,” she 
explained. “But they’ll understand that one 
day. Like everything else, love needs practice 
to become perfect. And I’ve loved—and I’ve 
been loved—for over fifty years. Doctor,” she 
continued, with a change of voice, “such a won¬ 
derful thing happened to me just now.” 

“Indeed?” he asked. 

“Yes, it was all very wonderful,” she pur¬ 
sued eagerly. “I sat down here and re—I 
mean, thought—for a few moments, and sud¬ 
denly all my life came back to me. And such 
a long and varied life it’s been. Sweet things 
and sad, good things and dreadful, big and 
little—they all rushed back into my mind. In 
this short time, I relived the past, and, Doctor, 
I seemed to understand my life for the first 
time. I saw the good and bad and big and little 
were all bound together by a chain of love. 
They mattered not at all in themselves, and 


216 


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differed so little from each other, because that 
chain had never once been broken. Sometimes 
it was almost broken—but never quite.” 

“And then you woke, dear lady,” he volun¬ 
teered, a slight mist in his eyes, “to happiness 
again . 9 9 

“Oh, to happiness—to happiness beyond all 
words,” came from the depths of her heart. 

“Now, Doctor,” she said with sudden deci¬ 
sion, “I must tidy my hair a bit, for Sir John 
may be calling for me almost any moment.” 

She went to the mirror and carefully tucked 
stray wisps of silver beneath her cap. Then 
she patted the locks and straightened the white 
lace until it was in perfect order. 

“Sir John was always very particular about 
my hair,” she explained with delicious co¬ 
quetry. “Do I look all right?” she asked wist¬ 
fully. 

There came the faint rustling of the draper¬ 
ies, and the door of the bedroom opened again. 
As Mary turned around, she saw the nurse, 
smiling and beckoning. 

“Lady Carlton,” she said. 

A touch of red came into Lady Carlton’s 
whitened cheeks, as she stood there for a mo¬ 
ment, her eyes glistening again with youth, her 


SECRETS 


217 


whole form trembling. Another secret—the 
greatest of all—caused her heart to pound 
wildly. Some day—it would be before long 
now—she could share it with the man who lay 
on the bed inside. 

She went to the door, and saw before her 
her husband, no longer deathly pale and mo¬ 
tionless. He was refusing the ministrations 
of the nurse, and as he pushed her away with 
one arm, he stretched another towards the 
opened door. 

“Mary,” his weak voice begged, “come here; 
I want you.” 

She walked towards him with outstretched 
arms. 

“Yes, John,” she murmured. 


THE END 


4 ‘ The Books You Like to Read 
at the Price You Like to Pay" 


There Are Two Sides 
to Everything — 

—including the wrapper which covers 
every Grosset & Dunlap book. When 
you feel in the mood for a good ro¬ 
mance, refer to the carefully selected list 
of modern fiction comprising most of 
the successes by prominent writers of 
the day which is printed on the back of 
every Grosset & Dunlap book wrapper. 

You will find more than five hundred 
titles to choose from—books for every 
mood and every taste and every pocket- 
book. 

Don't forget the other side, hut in case 
the wrapper is lost, write to the publishers 
for a complete catalog. 


There is a Grosset & Dunlap Book 
for every mood and for every taste 
















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